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HEINRICH HEINE'S 
PICTURES OF TRAVEL 



fenslatcb from % $*rmHtt, 



BY 

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. 

AUTHOR OP "MEISTER KARL'S SKETCH-BOOK," AND "SUNSHINE IN THOUGHT.*' 



FIFTH REVrSED EDITION. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PUBLISHED BY SCHAEFER & KORADI. 

1869. 



Ml* 

til 



Entered acccrding to Act of Congress, in iUa year 1855, 
by John "Weik, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Translator's Preface . 3 

THE HOMEWARD Journey, (1823-24) 9 

THE HARTZ Journey, (1824) 49 

THE NORTH SEA, Part I. (1825) 

Twilight 105 

Sunset ,.106 

Night on the Sea Shore 107 

Poseidon . 109 

Homage Ill 

Explanation 112 

Night in the Cabin 113 

Storm 115 

Calm at Sea 116 

A Sea Phantom 117 

Purification 119 

Peace 119 

THE NORTH SEA, Part II. (1826) 

Sea Greeting .....123 

Storm 124 

The Shipwrecked 125 

Sunset 126 

The Song of the Oceanides 128 

The Gods of Greece 130 

Questioning 133 

The Phoenix 134 

Echo 134 

Sea Sickness 135 

In Port 136 

Epilogue 138 

iii 



1V 

PAGE. 

THE NORTH SEA, Part III. (1826.) 

Written on the Island Nqrdemey 141 

The Poetic Man of Letters 164 

The Dramatist 164 

Oriental Poets 165 

Bell-Tones 165 

Orbis Pictns ■ 165 

IDEAS. BookLe Grand 167 

ANEW SPRING 219 

ITALY, (1828.) 

Journey from Munich to Genoa 238 

The Baths of Lucca 302 

The City of Lucca , 366 

Postscript 409 

ENGLISH FRAGMENTS, (1828) 411 

Dialogue on the Thames 412 

London 416 

The English 420 

Scott's Life of Napoleon Buonaparte 424 

Old Bailey 430 

The New Ministry 433 

The Debt 435 

The Opposition Party 444 

The Emancipation 453 

Wellington 458 

The Liberation..... 462 

Conclusion 468 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



JSTo living German writer has exerted an influence com- 
parable to that of Heine, and it is not less true, that since 
Goethe, no author has penetrated so generally through every 
class of society. Universality of popularity is the surest test 
of the existence of genius, just as a faithful reflex of the spirit 
of the age, in which it was conceived is the surest test of the 
genuineness of a work of art. That which grows from and is 
extolled by a class, may owe its birth to prejudice, and its 
subsequent life to the spirit of rivalry to which it ministers, 
and we consequently find at times, writers endowed with the 
faintest talent, achieving a world-wide reputation, — not by the 
force of innate genius, — but by dexterously turning to account 
the enthusiasm of a faction. But where, as in Heine's case, 
we find friend and enemy alike interested, and the adherents of 
all parties unanimous as to his abilities, regretting only the 
direction which they have taken ; then we become at once 
convinced that we have before us, that rarest and most brilliant 
phenomenon — a true genius — and one who, as such, impera- 
tively demands the attention of all who lay claim to informa- 
tion and intelligence. 

Whether Heine's genius and influence has been invariably 
and immediately exerted for good or for evil, is, and ever should 
be, for the impartial student of literature and of history, a 
matter of supreme indifference. The greatest and most import- 
ant developments are those whose real aims and value are first 

3 



4 TRANSLATORS PEEFACE. 

appreciated by posterity. If progress be the peculiar law of 
humanity, it is not less certain, that agitation is the main 
spring of progress, and that as a general rule, all agitations, 
however disagreeable they may have appeared to cotempora- 
ries, have advanced the world. Those who extol the advan- 
tages of civilization, and yet decry Alexander and CsBsar, the 
Crusades, the French Revolution and Napoleon, resemble the 
lady who loved veal but would fain have the butcher punished 
for cruelty. In an extended common sense view, those who 
thus lose all thought of the effect in the cause, are no better 
than thoughtless thieves, who would fain defraud the Spirit of 
Progress of the high yet legal price which he sets upon his 
wares. Such goods as happiness, and improved social culture, 
can only be bought for blood and suffering. Such is the law, 
but we must, in justice to the merchant, admit, that as his 
business has improved and his run of custom increased, he has 
shown a commendable alacrity in lowering his prices. 

Heine most emphatically belongs to that class of writers, 
who are a scandal to the weaker brethren, a terror to the 
strong, and a puzzle to the conservatively wise of their own 
day and generation, but who are received by the intelligent 
cotemporary with a smile, and by the after comer with thanks 
He belongs to that great band, whose laughter has been in its 
inner-soul more moving than the most fervid flow of serious 
eloquence — to the band which numbered Lucian and Rabelais, 
and Swift, among its members, — men who lashed into motion 
the sleepy world of the day, with all its " baroque-ish" virtues 
and vices. Woe to those who are standing near when a 
humorist of this stamp is turned loose on the world. He 
knows nothing of your old laws, — like an Azrael-Xapoleon, 
he advances conscienceless, feeling nothing but an overpowering 
impulse, as of some higher power which bids hiir strike and 
spare not. 

Heine has endeared himself to the German people by his 
universality of talent, his sincerity, and by his weaknesses, 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. O 

His very affectations render him more natural, for there i.s no 
effort whatever to conceal them and that which is truly natural, 
will always be attractive, if from no other cause than because it 
is so readily intelligible. He possesses in an eminent degree, 
the graceful art of communicating to the most uneducated 
mind, (of a sympathetic cast,) refined secrets of art and criti- 
cism ; and this he does, not like a pedantic professor, 
ex-cathedra, as if every word were an apocalypse of novelty, 
but rather like a friend, who with a delicate regard for the 
feelings of his auditor, speaks as though he supposed him 
already familiar with the subject in question. Pedantry and 
ignorant self-sufficiency appear equally and instinctively to 
provoke his attacks, and there is scarcely a modern form of 
these reactionary negative vices which he has not severely 
lashed. 

Perhaps the most characteristic position which Heine holds, 
is, that of interpreter or medium between the learned and the 
people. He has popularized philosophy, and preached to the 
multitude those secrets which were once the exclusive property 
of the learned. His writings have been a "flux" between the 
smothered fire of universities and the heavy ore of the 
public mind. Whether the process will evolve pure and 
precious metal, or noxious vapors, — in simple terms, 
whether the knowlege thus popularized, and whether the ulti- 
mate tendency of this " witty, wise, and wicked" writer has 
been for the direct benefit of the people, is not a question open 
to discussion. All that we know is, that he is here — that he 
cannot be thrust aside — and that he exerts an incredible and 
daily increasing influence. But to judge from every analogy 
and precedent, we must conclude that the agitation which he 
has caused, though eminently disagreeable to many, even 
friends, who are brought within its immediate action, will be> 
eminently beneficial in the end. 

It were worse than, folly to attempt tc palliate Heine's 
defects That they exist engrained, entwiued, and integrate 

1* 



6 TEANSLATOK 7 S pkeface. 

with his "better qualities, admits no doubt or denial. But they 
have been in every age so strikingly characteristic of every 
writer of his class, that we are forced to believe them insepara- 
ble. They are the shades which render the lights of the picture 
apparent, and without which the latter would in all proba- 
bility never have excited attention. It is a striking character- 
istic of true humor, that it is " all-embracing," including the 
good and the bad, the lofty and the low. There is no 
characteristic appreciable by the human mind, which does not 
come within the range of humor, for wherever creation is 
manifested, there will be contradiction and opposites, striving 
into a law of harmony. Humor appreciates the contradiction 
— the lie disguised as truth, or the truth born of a lie — and 
proclaims it aloud, for it is a strange quality of humor, that it 
must out, be the subject what it may. Unfortunately, no sub- 
ject presents so many and such absurdly vulnerable points as 
the proprieties and improprieties of daily life and society. 
Poor well meaning civilization, with her allies, morality and 
tradition, maintain a ceaseless warfare with nature, vulgarity, 
and a host of "outside barbarian" foes, while Humor, who 
always had in his nature more of the devil than the angel, 
stands by, laughing, as either party gets a fall. 

To understand the vagaries of Heine's nature, we must, 
regard him as influenced by humor in the fullest sense of the 
word. For as humor exists in the appreciation and reproduc- 
tion of the contrasts, of contrarieties and of appearances, it 
would not be humor, did its existence consist merely of 
merriment. The bitterest and saddest tears are as often 
drawn forth by humor as by mere pathos — nay, it may be 
doubted if grief and suffering be ever so terrible as when sup- 
ported by some strange coincidence or paradox. Conse- 
quently, we find in his works some of the most sorrowful 
plaints ever uttered by suffering poet, but contrasted with the 
most uproarious hilarity. Nay, he often contrives to delicately 
weave the opposing sentiments into one. " Other bards," says 



translator's preface. 7 

a late review of Heine, in The Athenseuin, "have passed from 
grave to gay within the compass of one w T ork ; but the art of 
constantly showing two natures, within the small limit of 
perhaps three ballad verses, was reserved for Herb, Hei^e. 
No one like him understands how to build up a little edifice 
of the tenderest and most refined sentiment, for the mere 
pleasure of knocking it down with a last line. No one like 
liim approaches his reader with doleful countenance, — pours 
into the ear a tale of secret sorrow, — and when the sympathies 
are enlisted, surprises his confidant with a horse-laugh. It 
seems as though nature had endowed him with a most delicate 
sensibility and a keen perception of the ridiculous, that his 
own feelings may afford him a perpetual subject for banter." 

A writer of Heine's character can be judged only by the 
broadest and most comprehensive rules of criticism, if indeed, 
in many instances he be open to criticism at all. A reviewer 
is said to have remarked of Carlyle, that one might as well 
attempt to criticise a porcupine, and this may be said with 
much greater truth of Heine. What can be done with a 
writer who parades every virtue mingled with every defect, 
including occasional flashes of studied stupidity and deliberate 
weakness, and impresses on your mind a conviction that all is 
right, and that all will be perceived to form a harmonious 
whole, if you yourself are only intelligent .enough to master 
the mysterious law of harmony which governs these incon- 
gruous elements. Heine, in fact, can only be fully compre- 
hended, as a whole, and the more we read him, the better we 
appreciate him. This is a characteristic of all truly great 
writers who do not reproduce themselves. 

There are undoubtedly in Heine, many passages which the 
majority of readers might wish omitted, but which the trans- 
lator feels bound, by a sense of literary fidelity to retain. The 
. duty of a translator, like that of the historian, is not to select, 
but to preserve for those cotemporaries or after-comers, who 
may possibly make good use of material which he would cast 






8 translator's preface. 

away. It is therefore intended, that the following translation 
shall be strictly true to the original. 

The translator sincerely trusts that the following version of 
the Pictures of Travel — the first ever presented to the 
American and English public, may be found comparatively 
free from defects, but above all, that it may be accepted in the 
spirit in which it is given, as an attempt to set forth the most 
influential living classic writer of Germany, and not as an 
endorsement of anything which that writer asserts or denies. 

Philadelphia, May 16, 1855. 



THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY. 



(1823 — 1824.) 



Trivial half-way joys we hate. 
Hate all childish fancies. 
If no crime weigh clown the soul, 
"Why should we endure control 

And groan in death-like trances? 
The puliug wight looks down and sighs, 
But the brave man lifts his eyes 
Up to Heaven's bright glances. 

IMMEItSIAS N. 



1. 



Theough u, life too dark and dreary 
Once. gleamed an image bright; 

Tliat lovely form hath vanished, 
And I am lost in night. 

When children stray in darkness, 
And fears around them throng, 

To drive away their terror, 
They sing some merry song. 

Thus like a child I'm singing 

As Life's dark shades draw near ; 

And though my lay lack music, 
It drives away my fear. 



(9) 



— 10 — 
2. 

I know not what sorrow is o'er me, 

What spell is upon my heart ; 
But a tale of old times is before me — 

A legend that will not depart. 

Night falls as 1 linger, dreaming, 

And calmly flows the Ehine ; 
The peaks of the hills are gleaming 

In the golden sunset shine. 

A wondrous lovely maiden 

Sits high in glory there ; 
Her robe with gems is laden. 

And she combeth her golden hair. 

And she spreads out the golden treasure, 

Still singing in harmony ; 
And the song hath a mystical measure, 

And a wonderful melody. 

The boatman, when once she hath bound hina. 

Is lost in a wild sad love : 
He sees not the black rocks around hin , 

He sees but the beauty above. 

Till he drowns amid mad waves ringing 

And sinks with the fading sun ; 
And that, with her magical singing, 

The witch of the Lurley hath don », 






My heart, my heart is weary, 
Yft merrily beams the May 

And I lean against the linden, 
High up on the terrace gray. 

The town-moat far below me 
Euns silent and sad, and blue ; 

A boy in a boat floats o'er it, 
Still fishing and whistling too. 



11 



And a beautiful varied picture, 

Spreads out beyond the flood, 
Fair houses, and gardens, and people, 

And cattle, and meadow, and wood. 

Young maidens are bleaching the linen, 
They laugh as they go and come ; 

And the mill-wheel is dripping with diamonds 
I list to its far away hum. 

And high on yon old gray castle 

A sentry-box peeps o'er ; 
While a young red-coated soldier 

Is pacing beside the door. 

He handles his shining musket, 
Which gleams in the sunlight red, 

He halts, he presents, and shoulders : — 
I wish that he'd shoot me dead ! 



4. 

I wander in the woods and weep, 
The thrush sits on the spray, 

She springs and sings right daintily : 
" Oh why so sad to-day ?" 

" Thy sister birds, the swallows, sweet, 

Can tell thee why, full well, 
For they have built their cunning nests, 

Where she I love doth dwell." 



5. 

The night is wet and stormy, 

The Heaven black above, 
Through the wood 'neath rustling branches, 

All silently I rove. 

From the lonely hunter's cottage, 

A light beams cheerily, 
But it will not tempt me thither 

Where all is sad to see. 



— 12' — 

The blind old grandmother's sitting 
Alone in the leathern Ghair ; 

Uncanny and stern as an image, 
And speaketh to no one there. 

The red-headed son of the hunter 
Walks cursing up and down ; 

And casts in a corner his rifle, 
With a bitter laugh and a frown. 

A maiden is spinning and weeping, 
And moistens the flax with tears ; 

While at her small feet, whimpering, 
Lies a hound with drooping ears. 



6. 



As I once upon a journey 

Met my loved one's family, 
Little sister, father, mother, 

All so kindly greeted me. 

Asking if my health was better ? 

Hoping that it would not fail ; 
For I seemed, — although unchanged, 

Just a little thin and pale. 

I inquired of aunts and cousins, 

All within the social mark ; 
And about their little grayhound 

With his soft and tiny bark. 

Of the loved one, — long since wedded, 
Then I asked, — though somewhat late ; 

And the father, smiling, whispered 
Of her "interesting state." 

And I gave congratulation 

On the delicate event ; 
And to her, — and all relations, 

" Best remembrances" were sent. 



— 13 — 

But a little sister murmured, 

That the dog, which once was mine, 

Had gone mad in early summer, 
" So we drowned him in the Rhine." 

That young girl is like her sister, 

Scarce you'd know their tones apart ; 

And she has the same soft glances 
Which so nearly broke my heart. 






We sat by the fisher's cottage, 
And looked at the stormy tide ; 

The evening mist came rising, - 
And floating far and wide. 

One by one in the light-house 
The lamps shone out on high ; 

And far on the dim horizon 
A ship went sailing by. 

We spoke of storm and shipwreck, 
Of sailors, and how they live ; 

Of journies 'twixt sky and water 
And the sorrows and joys they give 

We spoke of distant countries, 

In regions strange and fair ; 
And of the wondrous beings 

And curious customs there. 

Of perfume and lights on the Ganges, 
Where trees like giants tower ; 

And beautiful silent beings 
Still worship the lotus flower. 

Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, 

Broad-headed, wide-mouthed and small ; 

Who crouch round their oil-fires, cooking, 
And chatter and scream and bawl. 
2 



— 14 — 

And the maidens earnestly listened, 
Till at last we spoke no more ; 

The ship like a shadow had vanished, 
And darkness fell deep on the shore. 



8* 

Thon gentle ferry-maiden, 

Come — draw thy boat to land ; 

And sit thee down beside me, 
We'll talk with hand in hand. 

Lay thy head against my bosom, 
And have no fear of me ; 

Dost thou not venture boldly 
Each day on the roaring sea? 

My heart is like the ocean, 

It hath storm, and ebb, and flow ; 
And many a pearl is hidden 

In its silent depths below. 



9. 



The moon is high in heaven, 

And shimmers o'er the sea ; 
And my heart throbs like my dear one's, 

As she silently sits by me. 

With my arm around the darling, 

I rest upon the strand ; 
' And fearest thou the evening breezes — 

Why trembles thy snow-white hand ?" 

Those are no evening breezes, 
But the mermaids singing low ; 

The mermaids, once my sisters, 
Who were drowned long, long ago." 



— 15 — 



10- 

The quiet moon, amid the clouds, 

Like a giant, orange glows, 
While far beneath, the old gray sea, 

All striped with silver, flows. 

Alone I wander on the strand, 

Where the wild surf roars and raves ; 

But hear full many a gentle word, 
Soft spoken 'mid the waves. 

But oh, the night is far too long, 
And my heart bounds in my breast ; 

Fair water-fairies come to me, 
And sing my soul to rest. 

Oh, take my head upon your lap, 
Take body and soul, I pray ; 

But sing me dead — caress me dead — 
And kiss my life away. 



11. 

Wrapped up in gray cloud-garments, 
The great Gods sleep together ; 

I hear their thunder-snoring, 

And to-night we've dreadful weather. 

Dreadful weather ! what a tempest 
Around the weak ship raves ! 

Ah, who will check the storm-wind, 
Or curb the lordless waves ? 

Can't be helped though, if all nature' 

A mad holiday is keeping ; 
So I '11 wrap me up and slumber, 

As the gods above are sleeping. 



— 16 — 
12. 

The wild wind puts his trousers on — 

His foam-white pantaloons ; 
He lashes the waves, and every one 

Roars out in furious tunes. 

From yon wild height, with furious might, 

The rain comes roaring free. 
It seems as if the old black Night 

Would drown the old dark Sea. 

The snow-white sea-gull, round our mast, 
Sweeps like a winged wraith ; 

And every scream to me doth seem 
A prophecy of death. 



13. 

The wind pipes up for dancing, 
The waves in white are clad ; 

Hurrah ! — how the ship is leaping ! 
And the night is merry and mad. 

And living hills of water 

Sweep up as the storm-wind calls ; 
Here a black gulph is gaping, 

And there a white tower falls. 

And sounds as of sickness and swearing 
From the depths of the cabin come ; 

I keep a firm hold on the bulwarks, 
And wish that I now were at home. 



14* 

The night comes stealing o'er me, 
And clouds are on the sea ; 

While the wavelets rustle before me 
With a mystical melody. 

A water-maid rose singing 

Before me, fair and pale ; 
And snow-white breasts were springing 

Like fountains, 'neath her veil. 



— 17 — 

She kissed me and she pressed me, 
Till I wished her arms away : 
" Why hast thou so caressed me, 
Thou lovely Water Fay ?" 

" Oh thou need'st not alarm thee, 
That thus thy form I hold ; 
For I only seek to warm me, 
And the night is black and cold." 

" The wind to the waves is calling, 
The moonlight is fading away ; 
And tears down thy cheek are falling, 
Thou beautiful Water Fay!" 

" The wind to the waves is calling, 

And the moonlight grows dim on the rocks; 
But no tears from mine eyes are falling, 
'Tis the water which drips from my locks." 

"The ocean is heaving and sobbing, 
The sea-mews scream in the spray ; 
And thy heart is wildly throbbing, 
Thou beautiful Water Fay !" 

" My heart is wildly swelling, 
And it beats in burning truth ; 
For I love thee, past all telling — 
Thou beautiful mortal youth." 






15. 

" When early in the morning 
I pass thy window, sweet; 
Oh what a thrill of joy is mine, 
When both our glances meet !" 

"With those dark flashing eye-balls 
Which all things round thee scan ; 
Who art thou, and what seek'st thou ? 
Thou strange and sickly man !" 
2* 



— 18 — 

" I am a German poet, 

Well known in the German land ; 
Where the first names are written, 
Mine own with right may stand. 

"And what I seek, thou fairest, 
Is that for which many pine. 
And where men speak of sorrows, 
Thou'lt hear them speak of mine, 1 

16, 

The ocean shimmered far around, 
As the last sun-rays shone ; 

We sat beside the fisher's hut, 
Silent and all alone. 

The mist swam up, — the water heaved : 
The sea-mew round us screamed; 

And from thy dark eyes full of love, 
The scalding tear-drops streamed. 

I saw them fall upon thy hand, 

Upon my knee I sank ; 
And from that white and yielding hand 

The glittering tears I drank. 

And since that hour I waste away, 
'Mid passion's hopes and fears : 

Oh, weeping, girl ! — oh, weary heart !— 
Thou'rt poisoned with her tears ! 



17, 

High up on yonder mountain, 
There stands a lordly hall, 

Where dwell three gentle maidens, 
And I was loved by all. 

On Saturday Hetty loved me, 
The Sabbath was Julia's day, - 

.And on Monday, KunioTinda, 
Half kissed my breath aw ly. 



19 



On Tuesday, in their castle, 

My ladies gave a ball ; 
And thither, with coaches and horses, 

Went my neighbours, their wives and all. 

But I had no invitation, 

Although I dwelt so near ; 
And the gossiping misses and matrons. 

All thought it uncommonly queer ! 



18. 

Far on the dim horizon, 
As in a land of dreams ; 

Rises a white tower'd city, 
Fading 'mid sun-set gleams. 

The evening breeze is wreathing 
The water where I float ; 

And in solemn measure, the sailor 
Keeps time as he rows my boat. 

Once more the sun-light flashes, 
In wondrous glory round, 

And lights up the foaming water, 
Where she I loved was drowned. 



19; 

Once more in solemn ditty 

I greet thee, as I melt 
In tears, thou wondrous city, 

Where once my true love dwelt. 

Say on, ye gates and tower, 

Doth she I loved remain ? 
j gave her to your power — 

Give me my love again ! 

Blame not the trusty tower ! 

No word his walls could say, 
As a pair, with their trunks and baggage, 

So silently travelled away. * 



— 20 — 

But the wicket-gate was faithless, 
Through which she escaped so still : 

Oh, a wicket is always ready 

To ope when a wicked one will.* 



20. 

Again I see the well-known street, 

The same old path I tread; 
I've left the house where once she dwelt — 

Now all seems sad and dead. 

The streets press round like night-mare scenes 

The road is rough to day. 
The houses hang above my head, — 

Oh, let me haste away ! 



21. 

I wandered through the silent hall. 

"Where once she loved and wept ; 
And where I saw the false tears fall, 

A winding serpent crept. 



22. 

Calm is the night, and the city is sleeping, — 
Once in this house dwelt a lady fair ; 
Long, long ago, she left it, weeping, 
But still the old house is standing there. 

Yonder a man at the heavens is staring, 
Wringing his hands as in sorrowful case : 
He turns to the moonlight, his countenance baring— 
Oh, heaven ! he shows me my own sad face ! 

Shadowy form, with my own agreeing ; 
Why mockest thou thus, in the moonlight cold, 
The sorrows which here once vexed my being, 
Many a night in the days of old ? 



* Die Thorejedoch, die liessen 

Mrin Liebchen entwischen gar still; 
Ein Thor istimmer luiVig, 
Wain eine Thormn icill. 



— 21 — 
23. 

How can'st thou sleep so calmly, 

While I alive remain ? 
Old griefs may yet be wakened, 

And then I'll break my chain. 

Know'st thou the wild old ballad, 
How a dead, forgotten slave 

Came to his silent lady, 

And bore her to the grave ? 

Believe me, gentle maiden, 
Thou all-too-lovely star, 

I live, and still am stronger 
Than all the dead men are. 






24. 

The maiden sleeps in her chamber, 
The moonlight steals quivering in ; 

Without, there's a ringing and singing, 
As of waltzing about to begin. 

' I will see who it is 'neath my window, 
That gives me this strange serenade l n 

She saw a pale skeleton figure, 

Who fiddled, and sang as he played : 

' A waltz thou once didst promise, 
And hast broken thy word, my fair. 

To night there's a ball in the church-yard, 
So come — I will dance with thee there P 

A spell came over the maiden, 
She could neither speak nor stay ; 

So she followed the Fo'rm,- — which singing, 
And fiddling, went dancing away. 

Fiddling, and dancing, and hopping, 
And rattling his arms and spine ; 

The white skull grinning and nodding 
Away in the dim moon-shine. 



— 22 — 
25. 

I stood in shadowy dreams, 

I gazed upon her form ; 
And in that face, so dearly loved. 

Strange life began to warm. 

And on her soft and child-like mouth 
There played a heavenly smile : 

Though in her dark and lustrous eyes, 
A tear-drop shone the while. 

And my own tears were flowing too, 

In silent agony ; 
For oh ! I cannot deem it true. 

That thou art lost to me. 



26. 

I, a most wretched Atlas, who a world 
Of bitterest griefs and agonies maintain, 
Must bear the all-unbearable, until 
The heart's foundation fails. 

Wild daring heart ! — it was thine own mad choice 
Thou would'st be happy, — infinitely blessed 
Or wretched beyond measure. Daring heart 
Now thou art lost indeed ! 



27. 

Ages may come and vanish, 

Races may pass % away ; 
But the love which I have cherished 

Within, can ne'er decay. 

Once more I fain would see thee 
And kneel where e'er thou art ; 

And dying, whisper — "Madam, 
Be pleased to accept my heart!" 



23 



28. 

I dreamed : — the moon shone grimly down, 
The stars seemed sad and gray ; 

And I was in my true love's town, 
Full many a league away. 

I stood before the house and wept, 

I kissed the shadowy stone 
Where oft her little foot had stepped, 

Where oft her robes had flown. 

The cold step chilled my lip and arm, 

I lay in shivering swoon ; 
While from above a phantom form 

Looked out upon the moon. 



29. 

What means this solitary tear 

Which dims mine eye to-day? 
It is the last of all the hoard, 

Where once so many lay. 

It had full many a sister then 
Which rolled in glittering light ; 

But now, with all my smiles and griefs, 
They're lost in wind and night. 

And, like the mists, have also fled 
The light blue sparkling stars 

Which flashed their rays of joy or woe, 
Down through life's prison-bars. 

Oh love— wild love, — where art thou now? 

Fled like an idle breath : 
Thou silent solitary tear 

Go fade in misty death ! 



— 24 — 
30. 

The pale half-moon is floating 

Like a boat 'mid cloudy waves, 
Lone lies the pastor's cottage 

Amid the silent graves. 

The mother reads in the Bible, 
The son seems weary and weak ; 

The eldest daughter is drowsy, 

While the youngest begins to speak. 

" Ah me ! — how every minute 

Eolls by so drearily ; 
Only when some one is buried, 

Have we any thing here to see !" 

The mother murmured while reading, 

"Thou'rt wrong — they've brought but four 

Since thy poor father was buried 
Out there by the church-yard door." 

The eldest daughter says, gaping, 
" No more will I hunger by you ; 

I'll go to the Baron, to-morrow, 
He's wealthy, and fond of me too." 

The son bursts out into laughter, 
" Three hunters carouse in the Sun ; 

They all can make gold, and gladly 
Will show me how it is done." 

The mother holds the Bible 

To his pale face in grief; 
" And wilt thou — wicked fellow — 

Become a highway thief ?" 

A rapping is heard on the window, 
There trembles a warning hand ; 

Without, in his black, church garments, 
They see their dead father stand. 



— 25 — 
31. 

To-night we have dreadful weather, 
It rains and snows and storms ; 

I sit at my window, gazing 
Out on benighted forms. 

There glimmers a lonely candle, 
Which wearily wanders on ; 

An old dame with a lantern, 
Comes hobbling slowly anon. 

— It seems that for eggs and butter, 
And sugar, she forth has come, 

To make a cake for her daughter 
Her grown up darling at home. 

Who, at the bright lamp blinking, 
In an arm-chair lazily lies ; 

And golden locks are waving 
Above her beautiful eyes. 



32. 

They say that my heart is breaking 
With love and sorrow too ; 

And at last I shall believe it 
As other people do. 

Thou, girl, with eyes dark beaming, 
I have ever told thee this, 

That my heart with love is breaking, 
That thou wert all my bliss. 

But only in my chamber 
Dared I thus boldly speak ; 

Alas ? — when thou wert present, 
My words were sad and weak. 

For there were evil angels 

Who quickly hushed my tongue ; 
And oh ! — such evil angels 

Kill many a heart when young. 



— 26 — 
33. 

Thy soft and snow-white fingers ! 
Could I kiss them once again, 
And press them on my beating heart 
And melt in silent tears 1 

Thy melting, violet eyes 
Beam round me night and day ; 
And I vex my soul with wondering 
What the soft, blue riddles mean 1 



34. 

" And hath she never noticed 
That thou with love did'st burn j 

And saw'st thou in her glances 
No sign of love's return ? 

And could'st thou then read nothing; 

In all her words and airs : 
Thou, who hast such experience, 

Dear friend, in these affairs ? 



35. 

They tenderly loved, and yet neither 
Would venture the other to move ; 

They met as if hate were between them, 
And yet were half dying with love. 

They parted, and then saw each other 
At times, in their visions alone ; 

They had long left this sad life together, 
Yet scarcely to either 'twas known. 






36. 

When first my afflictions you heard me rehearse, 

You gaped and you stared : — God be praised 'twas no worse I 

But when I repeated them smoothly in rhyme, 

You thought it was " wonderful," " glorious," " sublime I" 



— 27 — 
37. 

I called the Devil and he came, 

In blank amaze his form I scanned, 
He is not ugly, is not lame, 

But a refined, accomplished man. 
One in the very prime of life, 
At home in every cabinet strife,, . 
Who, as diplomatist, can tell 
Church and State news, extremely well 
He is somewhat pale, and no wonder either, 
Since he studies Sanscrit and Hegel together. 
His favorite poet is still FouguS, 

Of criticism he makes no mention; 

Since all such matters unworthy attention. 
He leaves to his grandmother, Hecate. 
He praised my legal efforts, and said 
That he also when younger some law had read, 
Remarking that friendship like mine would be 
An acquisition, and bowed to me : — 
Then asked if we had not met before 

At the Spanish minister's soiree? 
And as I scanned his face once more, 

I found I had known him for many a day ! 



38. 

Mortal ! — sneer not at the Devil, 
Soon thy little life is o'er; 

And eternal grim damnation 
Is no idle tale of yore. 

Mortal ! — pay the debts thou owest, 
Long 'twill be ere life is o'er ; 

Many a time thou yet must borrow. 
As thou oft hast done before. 



39. 

The three wise monarchs of the East,. 

Asked in each city near : 
"Which is the way to Bethlehem, 

Tell us ye children dear ?" 



— 28 — 

But neither old nor young could tell. 
The three wise kings went on ; 

Still following a golden star 
Which gleamed in glory down. 

Until it paused o'er Joseph's house, 
Before the shrine they bowed ; 

The oxen lowed, the infant cried, 
The three kings sang aloud. 



40- 

My child, we once were children, 
Two children gay and small ; 

We crept into the hen-house 
And hid ourselves, heads and all. 

We clucked just like the poultry, 
And when folks came by, you know— 

Kickery-kee !■ — they started, 
And thought 'twas a. real crow. 

The chests which lay in our court-yard, 

We papered so smooth and nice ; 

We thought they were splendid houses 

And lived in them, snug as mice. 

When the old cat of our neighbour- 
Dropped in for a social call ; 

We made her bows and courtesies, 
And compliments and all. 

We asked of her health, and kindly 
Inquired how all had sped : — 

Since then, to many a tabby, 
The self-same things we've said. 

And oft, like good old people, 
We talked with sober tongue , 

Declaring that all was better 
In the days when we were young. 

How piety, faith and true-love 

Had vanished quite away ; 
And how dear we found the coffee* 

How scarce the money to-day. 



— 29 — 

So all goes rolling onward. 

The merry days of youth, — 
Money, the world and its seasons ; 

And honesty, love and truth. 



41. 

My heart is sad, and with misgiving 

I ponder o'er the ancient day, 
When this poor world was fit to live in, 

And calmly sped the time away. 

Now all seems ehanged which once was cherished. 
The world is filled with care and dread ; 

As if the Lord in Heaven had perished, 
And down below the Devil were dead. 

But care of all hath so bereft us, 

So little pleasure Life doth give ; 
That were not some faint Love still left us 

No more I'd wish on Earth to live. 



42. 

As the summer moon shines rising 
Through the dark and cloud-like trees 

So my soul mid shadowy memories 
Still a gleaming picture sees. 

All upon the deck were seated, 
Proudly sailing on the Ehine ; 

And the shores in summer verdure 
Gleamed in sunset's crimson shine. 

And I rested, gently musing, 

At a lovely lady's feet ; 
And her dear pale face was gleaming 

In the sun-rays soft and fleet. 

Lutes were ringing, boys were singing, 
Wondrous rapture o'er me stole ; 

Bluer, bluer grew the Heavens, 
Fuller, higher, swelled my soul. 
3* 



— 30 — 

Like a legend, wood and river, 
Hill and tower before me flies ; 

And I see the whole, reflected, 
In the lady's lovely eyes. 



43. 

In dreams I saw the loved one ? 

A sorrowing, wearied form ; 
Her beauty blanched and withered 

By many a dreary storm. 

A little babe she carried, 

Another child she led, 
And poverty and trouble 

In glance and garb I read, 

She trembled through the market, 
And face to face we met ; 

And I calmly said, while sadly 
Her eyes on mine were set. 

u Come to my house, I pray thee,, 
For thou art pale and thin ; 
A.nd for thee, by my labour, 
Thy meat and drink I'll win, 

" And to thy little children 
I'll be a father mild : 
But most of all thy parent, 
Thou poor unhappy child." 

Nor will I ever tell thee 
That once I held thee dear y 

And if thou diest, then I 
Will weep upon thy bier. 



44. 

Dear friend- — why. wilt thou ever 

Through the same old measures move ; 

Wilt thou brooding, sit forever 
On the same old eggs of love ? 



— 31 — 

"Pis an endless incubation, 

From their shells the chickens look ; 
And the chirping generation 

Straight is cooped within a book 



45 > 

But do not be impatient, 

If the same old chords still ring ; 
And ye find the same old sorrows, 

In the newest songs I sing. 

Wait — ye shall yet hear fading, 

This echo of my pain ; 
When a fresh spring of poems 

Blooms from my heart again. 



46. 

And now it is time that with reason, 

Myself from all folly I free ; 
I have played for too lengthened a season, 

The part of an actor with thee. 

Our scenery all was new-fangled, 
In the style of the highest romance ; 

My armour was splendidly spangled, 
I thought but of lady and lance. 

And now with this frippery before me, 
I sigh that such parts I could fill ; 

And a sorrowful feeling comes o'er me, 
As though I played comedy still. 

Ah, Heaven ! unconscious and jesting, 

I spoke what in secret I felt ; 
And while Death in my own heart was resting 

As the dying athleta I knelt. 



47. 

The great King Wisiva-mitra 

Is lost in trouble now ; 
For he through strife and penance 

Will win Waschischta's cow. 



— 32 — 

Oh great King, Wiswa-mitra ! 

Oh what an ass art thou ! 
To bear such strife and penance 

All for a single cow. 



48. 

Heart my heart, — Oh be not shaken, 
And still calmly bear thy pain ! 
For the Spring will bring again, 

What a dreary winter's taken. 

And how much is still remaining, 
And how bright the world still beams ; 
And my heart, — what pleasant seems, 

Thou may'st love with none complaining. 



49. 

Thou'rt like a lovely floweret, 

So void of guile or art. 
I gaze upon thy beauty, 

And grief steals o'er my heart 

I fain would lay, devoutly, 
My hands upon thy brow ; 

And pray that God will keep thee 
As good and fair as now. 



50. 

Child ! — it were thine utter ruin, 
And I strive, right earnestly, 

That thy gentle heart may never 
Glow with aught like love for me. 

But the thought that 'twere so easy, 
Still amid my dreams will move; 

And I still am ever thinking 
That 'twere sweet to win thy love. 



— 33 — 
51. 

When on my bed I'm lying", 
In night and pillows warm, 

There ever floats before me 
A sweet and gentle form, 

But soon as silent slumber 
Has closed my weary eyes, 

Before me, in a vision, 
I see the image rise. 

Yet with the dream of morning 
It doth not pass away, 

For I bear it in my bosom 
Around, the live-long day. 



52> 

Maiden with a mouth of roses, 
With those eyes serene and bright S 

Thou, my little darling maiden ! 
Dearest to my heart and sight ! 

Long the winter nights are growing — 
Would I might forget their gloom : 

By thee sitting — with thee chatting, 
In thy little friendly room. 

Often to my lips, in rapture, 
I would press thy snowy hand; 

Often with my eyes bedewing 
Silently that darling hand. 



53. 

Though without, the snow-drifts tower, 
Though hail falls, and tempests shower 
Rattling on the window-pane : 
Still their gloom is all in vain — 
For her form doth ever bring 
To my heart the joys of spring 



— 34 - 
54. 

Some to the Madonna run, 
Others pray to Paul or Peter ; 
I will only pray to thee, love, 

But to thee, thou fairest sun ! 

Grant me kisses ! — I am won ! — 
Oh, be merciful and gracious ! 
Fairest sun among the maidens 1 

Fairest maiden 'neath the sun I 



55. 

And do not my pale cheeks betray 
To thee my heart's distress ? 

And wilt thou that so proud a mouth 
The beggar's prayer confess? 

Ah me! this mouth is far too proud; 

It can but kiss and jest. 
I may have spoken mocking words 

With anguish in my breast. 



56. 

Dearest friend — thou art in love ; 

Now thou feel'st the arrows smart ; 
Darkness gathers round thy head, 

Light is dawning in thy heart. 

Dearest friend — thou art in love ! 

And that love must be confest ; 
For I see thy glowing heart 

Plainly scorching through thy vest: 



57. 

I fain would linger near thee, 
But when I sought to woo, 

Thou hadst no time to hear me, 
Thou hadst '"too much to do,' 



— 35 — 

I told thee, shortly after, 
That all thine own I 'd be ; 

And with a peal of laughter, 
Thou mad'st a courtesy. 

At last thou didst confuse me 
More utterly than this ; 

For thou didst e'en refuse me 
A trifling parting kiss ! 

Fear not that I shall languish, 
Or shoot myself — oh, no ! 

I've gone through all this anguish, 
My dear, long, long ago. 



58. 

Bright sapphires are thy beaming eyes, 
Dear eyes, so soft and sweet ; 

Ah me ! thrice happy is the man 
Whom they with true love greet. 

Thy heart's a diamond, bright and clear. 
Whence rays of splendor flow ; 

Ah me ! thrice happy is the man 
For whom with love they glow. 

Thy lips are rubies melting red, 

No brighter need we seek, 
Ah me ! thrice happy is the man, 

To whom with love they speak. 

Oh, could I meet that happy man, 

But once, I'd ask no more ; 
For all alone in the gay green wood, 

His joys would soon be o'er. 



59> 

With love-vows I long have bound me, 
Firmly bound me to thy heart ; 

Now with my own meshes round me, 
Jesting turns to pain and smart. 



— 36 — 

But if thou, — with right before thee, — 
Now should'st turn away thy head ; 

Then the devil would soon come o'er me, 
And by Jove, I'd shoot me dead ! 



60* 

This world and this life are too scattered we know, 

And so to a German professor I'll go. 

He can well put all the fragments together, 

Into a system, convenient and terse ; 
While with his night-cap, and dressing-robe tatters, 

He'll stop up the chinks of the wide Universe. 



61. 

To-night they give a party, 

The house gleams bright above ; 

And across the lighted window 
I see thy shadow move. 

Thou see'st me not in darkness, 

I stand alone, apart ; 
Still less can'st cast thy glances 

Into my gloomy heart. 

This gloomy heart still loves thee, 
It loves : — though long forgot. 

Breaking, convulsed and bleeding ; 
Alas ! — thou see'st it not! 



62. 

I would I could blend my sorrows 

Into a single word ; 
It should fly on the wilful breezes, 

As wildly as a bird. 

They should carry to thee, my loved one, 
That saddest, strangest word ; 

At every hour it would meet thee 
In every place be heard. 



37 



And as soon as those eyes in slumber, 
Had dimmed their starry gleam ; 

That word of my sorrow should follow, 
Down to thy deepest dream. 



63. 

Thou hast diamonds and dresses and jewels, 

And all that a mortal could crave ; 
Thou hast eyes that are fairer than any, 

My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have ? 

To those eyes which are brighter than jewels, 

I have written — both lively and grave : — 
An army of poems immortal, 

My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have? 
Ah ! — those eyes which are brighter than diamonds, 

Have brought me well nigh to the grave ; 
I am tortured, tormented, and ruined, 

My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have ? 



64. 

He who for the first time loves, 
Though unloved is still a God ; 
But the man who loves again, 
And in vain, must be a fool. 

Such a fool am I, who love 
Once again, without return ; 
Sun and moon and stars all smile, 
And I smile with them — and die ! 



65. 

No, the tameness and the sameness 
Of thy soul, would not agree 

With my own soul's ruder braveness, 
Which e'er rocks went leaping free. 

Thy love-paths were graded turnpikes, 
Now with husband, every day, 

Arm in arm I see thee walking 
Bravely, — in the family way ! 



— 38 — 
66. 

They gave me advice and counsel in store, 
Praised me and honoured me, more and more ; 
Said that I only should "wait awhile." 
Offered their patronage too, with a smile. 

But with all their honour and approbation, 
I should, long ago, have died of starvation , 
Had there not come an excellent man, 
Who bravely to help me along began. 

Good fellow ! — he got me the food I ate, 
His kindness and care I shall never forget ; 
Yet I cannot embrace him — though other folks can 
For I myself am this excellent man ! 



67. 

I can never speak too highly 
Of my amiable young friend ; 

Oft he treated me to oysters, 
Wine, and cordials without end. 

Neatly fit his coat and trousers, 
His cravats are such as "tell;" 

And he sees me every morning 
To inquire if I am well. 

Of my great renown he speaketh, 
Of my wit or of my grace ; 

And to aid me or to serve me, 
Warmly seeks for time and place. 

Every evening, to the ladies, 
In the tones of one inspired, 

He declaims my "heavenly poems 
Which the world has so admired.' J 

Oh, but is it not refreshing 

Still to find such youths " about," 
And in times like these, when truly, 

All the best seem dying out ? 






39 



68. 

I dreamed that I was Lord of all, 
High up in Heaven sitting ; 

With cherubim who praised my song. 
Around in glory flitting. 

And cakes I ate, and sugar-plums, 
Worth many a shining dollar, 

And claret-punch I also drank, 
With never a bill to follow. 

And yet ennui vexed me sore, 
I longed for earthly revels, 

And were I not the Lord himself, 
I sure had been the Devil's. 

" Come, trot, tall Angel Gabriel, 
To thee broad wings are given ; 
Go find my dearest friend Eugene, 
And bring him up to Heaven ! 

" Ask not for him in lecture-rooms 
But where Tokay inspires ; 
Seek him not in the Hedwig's Church, 
Seek him at Ma'msell Meyer's !" 

Abroad he spreads his mighty wings, 
To earth his course descends ; 

He catches up the astonished youth, 
Eight from among his friends. 

" Yes, youth, I now am Lord of all, 
The earth is my possession ; 
I always told thee I was bound 
To rise in my profession. 

" And miracles I too can work, 
To set thee wild with pleasure ; 
And now I'll make the town Ix-Ix* 
Eejoice beyond all measure : 



* Or X, x. In one edition Heine calls this town Berlin. — Note by Translator. 



— 40 - 

' For every stone which paves the street 

Shall now be split in two ; 
And in the midst shall sparkle bright 

An oyster fresh as dew. 

' A gentle shower of lemon-juice 
Shall give the oysters savour ; 

The gutters of the streets must run 
With hock of extra flavour.-" 

How the Ix-Ixers go to work ! 

What cries of joy they utter ! 
The council and the aldermen 

Are swilling up the gutter. 

And how the poets all rejoice, 
To see things done so neatly ; 

The ensigns and lieutenants too, 

Have cleaned the streets completely. 

The wisest are the officers, 

For, speculation scorning ; 
They sagely say, " such miracles 

Don't happen every morning." 



69. 

From loveliest lips have I alas been driven, 
From fairest arms enforced to withdraw ; 

Long had I gladly rested in this heaven, 

But with his carriage came my brother-in-law. 

And such is life, my child ; — an endless plaining, 
A ceaseless parting, and a long adieu ; 

Could not thy heart charm mine into remaining, 
Could not thine eyes win me and hold me too ? 



70. 

We rode in the dark post-carriage, 
We travelled all night alone ; 

We slept and we jested together, 
We laughed until morning shone. 



41 



But as daylight came dawning o'er us, 
My dear, how we started to find 

Between us a traveller named Cupid, 
Who had ventured on "going it blind."* 

7L 

Lord knows where the wild young huzzy 
Whom I seek, has settled down ; 

Swearing at the rain and weather, 
I have scoured through all the town. 

I have run from inn to tavern — 

Ne'er a bit of news I gain ; 
And of every saucy waiter 

I've inquired — and all in vain. 

There she is ! — at yonder window — 
Smiling, beckoning to me. Well ! 

How was I to know you quartered, 
Miss, in such a grand hotel? 






72. 

Like dusky dreams, the houses 

Stand in a lengthened row ; 
And wrapped in my Spanish mantle, 

Through the shadow I silently go. 

The tower of the old cathedral 

Announces that midnight has come ; 

And now, with her charms and her kisses, 
My dearest is waiting at home. 



* Dock als es Morgens tagte, 

Mein Kind, wie staunten wir! 
Denn zwischen uns sass Amor 
Der blinde Passagier. 
I have heard " a blind passenger" described as the one who sits at the end of the 
Eilwagen (or Diligence), where there is no window. But in popular parlance, '■ the blind 
passenger" is one who, to translate a bit of German slang by its American equivalent, 
may be termed a " self-elected dead-head," or an individual who slips in and out of an 
entertainment, coach, steamboat, or the like, without paying for his admission. 

Literally this verse reads: — '"But when day dawned, my child, how we were astonished. 
for between us sat Amor, the blind passenger.— [Note by 'Translator.] 

4* 



— 42 — 

The moon is my boon companion, 

She cheerily lights my way, 
Till 1 come to the house of my true-love, 

And then to the moon I say : 

Many thanks for thy light, old comrade ; 

Eeceive my parting bow ; 
For the rest of the night I'll excuse thee— =» 

Go shine upon other folks now. 

And if thou shouldst "light" on a lover, 

Who drearily sorrows alone, 
Console him as thou hast consoled me, 

In the wearisome times long gone. 






73. 

What lies are hid in kisses, ■ 
What delight in mere parade! 

To betray may have its blisses, 
But more blest is the betrayed. 

Say what thou wilt, my fairest, 
Still I know what thou 'It receive; 

I'll believe just what thou swearest, 
And will swear what thou 'It believe. 



74. 

Upon thy snowy bosom 

I laid my weary head ; 
And secretly I listened 

To what thy heart-throbs said. 

The blue hussars come riding 
With trumpets, to the gate ; 

And to-morrow she who loves me 
Will seek another mate. 

\.J3ut though thou leav'st to-morrow 
^ v To-day thou still must rest ; 
And in thy lovely arms, love, 
Will I be doubly blest. 



— 43 — 

75. 

The blue hussars, with trumpets, 

Go riding on their way ; 
Again I come to thee, love, 

And bring a rose-bouquet. 

That was a crazy business, 

Trouble in every part ; 
And many a dashing blade was drawn 

And quartered ii thy heart. 



76. 

Long ago, when very young, 
Much I suffered, much I sung 

Of true love's burning mood. 
But now I find that wood is dear, 
The fire burns lower every year, 

Ma foil — and that is good. 

Think of that, young beauty, now ; 
Drive those sorrows from thy brow, 

With tears and love's alarms. 
While life remains, since life is brief, 
Forget thine old love, and its grief, 

Ma foil — in my fond arms. 



77. 

How the eunuchs were complaining 

At the roughness of my song : 
Complaining and explaining 
. That my voice was much too strong. 

Then delicately thrilling 

They all began to sing ; 
Like crystal was their trilling, 

So pure it seemed to ring. 

They sang of passion sweeping 
In hot floods from the heart : 

The ladies all were weeping, 
In a rapturous sense of Art ! 



— u — 
78/ 

'Twas just in the midst of July that I left you, 
And now in mid-winter I meet you once more ; 
Then, as we parted, with heat ye were glowing, 
Now ye are cool, and the fever is o'er. 

Once more I leave : — should T come again hither, 
Then you will be neither burning nor cold ; 
Over your graves, — well-a-day! — I'll be treading, 
And oh, but my own heart is weary and old ! 



79. 

And dost thou really hate me, 

Art thou really changed so sadly? 

I'll complain to every-body 

That thou'st treated me so badly, 

Oh red lips, — so ungrateful, 
How could ye speak unkindly, 

Of him who kissed so fondly. 
Of him who loved so blindly ? 



80.. 

And those are still the heavenly eyes ; 

Which mine would gently greet ; 
And those are still the coral lips, 

Which once made life so sweet. 

'Tis the same voice of melody, 

I once so gladly heard ; 
I, only, am no more the same, 

But changed in thought and word. 

Now by those white and rounded arms, 

I'm passionately pressed ; 
And lie upon her heart and feel, 

Gloomy and ill at rest. 



— 45 — 
81. 

Bound the walls of Salamanca 
Softly blows the perfumed air; 

Oft I wander with my Donna 
Of a summer's evening there. 

Bound the light waist of my lady 

My embracing arm I rest ; 
And I feel, with happy fingers, 

The proud heaving of her breast. 

Yet a murmur, as of anguish, 

Through the linden blossoms streams ; 
And the gloomy mill-stream 'neath them 

Murmurs long and evil dreams. 

Ah, SeSora ! — dark forebodings 
Of "expulsion" round me stalk; 

Then about fair Salamanca 

We no more can take our walk. 



82, 

Scarce had we met, when, in glance and in tone, 
I saw that your favourable notice I'd got ; 
And if we had only been standing alone, 
I really believe we'd have kissed on the spot. 

To-morrow I leave, while the world is asleep. 
Away as of old, on my journey I go ; 
And then my blonde girl from the window will peep, 
And glances of love at the window I'll throw. 



83. 

The sunlight is stealing o'er mountain and river, 
The cries of the flocks are heard over the plain ; 
My love and my lamb and my darling forever, 
How glad I would be, could I see thee again. 

Upwards I look, and with glances full loving, 
" Darling, adieu ! I must wander from thee." 
Vainly I wait, for no curtain is moving, 
She lies and she sleeps and she's dreaming of me. 



— 46 — 
84. 

In the market-place of Halle 

There stand two mighty lions ; 
Oh thou lion-pride of Halle : 

How greatly art thou tamed ! 

In the market-place of Halle 

There stands a mighty giant ; 
He hath a sword yet never stirs, — 

He's petrified with fear. 

In the market-place of Halle 

There stands a mighty church ; 
Where the Burschenscliaft and the Landsmannschaft* 

Have plenty of room to pray. 



85. 

Summer eve with day is striving, 
Softly gaining wood and meadow ; 
Mid blue heavens the golden moonlight 

Gleams, in perfumed air reviving. 

Crickets round the brook are cheeping, 
Something stirs amid the water ; 
And the wanderer hears a plashing, 

And a breath amid the sleeping : 

There alone, beside the river, 
See ! — a fair Undine is bathing. 
Arms and bosom, white and lovely, 

In the shimmering moon-rays quiver. 



86. 

On strange roads, night broods, distressing 
Sickly heart and wearied limbs : 

Ah ! how like a silent blessing, 
The soft moonlight o'er me swims. 



* Student Associations, the Burschenschaft being general and political in its objects, 
while the Landsmannschafter are local. —Note by Translator. 



— 47 — 

Gentle moon , — thy calm rays banish 
Far away my night-born fears, 

At thy glance all sorrows vanish, 
And my eyes run o'er with tears. 



87. 

Death is a cool and pleasant night ; 

Life is a sultry day. 

'Tis growing dark — I'm weary ; 
For day has tired me with his light. 

Over my bed a fair tree gleams, 
There sings a nightingale ; 
She sings of naught save love ; 

I hear it even in dreams. 



88. 

Say — where is thine own sweet love, 
Whom thou hast so sweetly sung ; 

When the flames of magic power 

Strangely through thy wild heart sprung? 

Ah ! those flames no longer burn, 
And my heart is slow to move ; 

And this book's the burial urn, 
With the ashes of my love. 



THE HARTZ JOURNEY. 



(1824.) 



" Nothing is permanent but change, nothing constant but death. Every pulsation of 
the heart inflicts a wound, and life would be an endless bleeding, were it not for Poetry. 
She secures to us what Nature would deny, — a golden age without rust, a spring whici 
never fades, cloudless prosperity and eternal youth." 

Borne 









Black dress coats and silken stockings 

Snowy ruffles frilled with art, 
Gentle speeches and embraces — 

Oh, if they but held a heart ! 

Held a heart within their bosom, 
Warmed by love which truly glows ; 

Ah, — I'm wearied with their chanting 
Of imagined lover's woes ! 

1 will climb upon the mountains 

Where the quiet cabin stands, 
Where the wind blows freely o'er us, 

Where the heart at ease expands. 

1 will climb upon the mountains, 
* Where the dark green fir trees grow ; 
Brooks are rustling — birds are singing, 
And the wild clouds headlong go. 

5 (49} 



— 50 — 

Then farewell, ye polished ladies, 
Polished men and polished hall ! 

I will climb upon the mountain, 
Smiling down upon you all. 






The town of Gottingen, celebrated for its sausages and University, 
belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains nine hundred and 
ninety-nine dwellings, divers churches, a lying-in-asylum, an observa- 
tory, a prison, a library, and a " council-cellar," where the beer is 
excellent. The stream which flows by the town is termed the Leine, 
and is used in summer for bathing, its waters being very cold, and in 
more than one place so broad, that Luder was obliged to take quite 
a run ere he could leap across. The town itself is beautiful, and 
pleases most when looked at — backwards. It must be very ancient, 
for I well remember that five years ago, when I was there matricu- 
lated, (and shortly after " summoned,") it had already the same grey, 
old-fashioned, wise look, and was fully furnished with beggars, beadles, 
dissertations, tea-parties with a little dancing, washer-women, com- 
pendiums, roasted pigeons, Guelphic orders, professors, ordinary and 
extraordinary, pipe-heads, court-counsellors, and law-counsellors. 
Many even assert that at the time of the great migration of races, 
every German tribe left a badly corrected proof of its existence in the 
town, in the person of one of its members, and that from these 
descended all the Yandals, Frisians, Suabians, Teutons, Saxons, 
Thuringians and others, who at the present day abound in Gottingen 
where, separately distinguished by the color of their caps and pipe- 
tassels, they may be seen straying singly or in hordes along the 
Weender-street. They still fight their battles on the bloody arena 
of the Rasenmill, RitscJienkrug and Bovden, still preserve the mode 
of life peculiar to their savage ancestors, and are still governed partly 
by their Duces, whom they call " chief-cocks," and partly by their 
primevally ancient law-book, known as the " Comment," which fully 
deserves a place among the legibus barbarorum. 

The inhabitants of Gottingen, are generally and socially divided 
into Students, Professors, Philistines and Cattle, the points of differ- 
ence between these castes being by no means strictly defined. The 
cattle class is the most important. I might be accused of prolixity 
should I here enumerate the names of all the students and of all the 
regular and irregular professors ; besides, I do not just at present 
distinctly remember the appellations of all the former gentlemen, 
while among the professors, are many, who as yet have no name at 



— 51 — 

all. The number of the Gottingen Philistines must be as numerous 
as the sands (or more correctly speaking, as the mud) of the sea ; 
indeed, when I beheld them of a morning, with their dirty faces and 
clean bills, planted before the gate of the collegiate court of justice, 
I wondered greatly that such an innumerable pack of rascals should 
ever have been created. 

More accurate information of the town of Gottingen may be very 
conveniently obtained from its " Topography," by K. F. H. Marx. 
Though entertaining the most sacred regard for its author, who was 
my physician, and manifested for me much esteem, still I cannot pass 
by his work with altogether unconditional praise, inasmuch as he has 
not with sufficient zeal combatted the erroneous opinions that the ladies 
of Gottingen have not enormous feet. On this point I speak autho- 
ritatively, having for many years been earnestly occupied with a refu- 
tation of this opinion. To confirm my views I have not only studied 
comparative anatomy and made copious extracts from the rarest 
works in the library, but have also watched for hours, in the Weender 
street, the feet of the ladies as they walked by. In the fundamentally 
erudite treatise, which forms the result of these studies, I speak 
Firstly, Of feet in general; Secondly, of the feet of antiquity; 
Thirdly, of elephants' feet ; Fourthly, of the feet of the Gottingen 
ladies ; Fifthly, I collect all that was ever said in Ulrich's Garden 
on the subject of female feet. Sixthly, I regard feet in their con- 
nection with each other, availing myself of the opportunity to extend 
my observation to ankles, calves, knees, &c, and finally and Seventhly, 
if I can manage to hunt up sheets of paper of sufficient size I will 
present my readers with some copperplate fac-similes of the feet of the 
fair dames of Gottingen. 

It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Gottingen, and 
the learned * •* * beyond doubt still lay in bed, dreaming that 
he wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of which grew innu- 
merable white papers written over with citations. On these the 
sun shone cheerily, and he plucked them and planted them in new 
beds while the sweetest songs of the nightingales rejoiced his old 
heart. 

Before the Weender Gate, I met two native and diminutive school 
boys, one of whom was saying to the other, " I don't intend to keep 
company any more with Theodore, he is a low little blackguard, for 
yesterday he didn't even know the genitive of Mensa." Insignificant 
as these words may appear, I still regard them as entitled to record — 
nay, I would even write them as town-motto on the gate of Gottingen, 



— 52 — 

for the young birds pipe as the old ones sing, and the expression accu- 
rately indicates the narrow-minded academic pride so characteristic 
of the " highly learned" Georgia Augusta. 

Fresh morning air blew over the road, the birds sang cheerily, and 
little by little, with the breeze and the birds, my mind also became 
fresh and cheerful. Such a refreshment was needed for one who had 
long been imprisoned in a stall of legal lore. Roman casuists had 
covered my soul with grey cobwebs, my heart was cemented firmly 
between the iron paragraphs of selfish systems of jurisprudence, there 
was an endless ringing in my ears of such sounds as " Tribonian, Jus- 
tinian, Hermogenian, and Blockheadian," and a sentimental brace of 
lovers seated under a tree, appeared to me like an edition of the 
Corpus Juris with closed clasps. The road began to wear a more 
lively appearance. Milk-maids occasionally passed, as did also donkey 
drivers, with their grey pupils. Beyond Weende, I met the " Shep- 
herd," and " Doris." This is not the idyllic pair sung by Gessner, but 
the well-matched University beadles, whose duty it is to keep watch 
and ward, so that no students fight duels in Bovclen, and above all 
that no new ideas (such as are generally obliged to maintain a decen- 
nial quarantine before Gottingen,) are smuggled in/ by speculative 
private teachers. Shepherd greeted me very collegially and conge- 
nially, for he too is an author, who has frequently mentioned my 
name in his semi-annual writings. In addition to this, I may men- 
tion that when, as was frequently the case, he came to summon me 
before the University court and found me " not at home ;" he was 
always kind enough to write the citation with chalk upon my chamber 
door. Occasionally a one-horse vehicle rolled along, well packed with 
students, who travelled jaway for the vacation — or for ever. In such 
a university town, there is an endless coming and going. Every 
three years beholds a new student-generation, forming an incessant 
human tide, where one vacation-wave washes along its predecessor, 
and only the old professors remain upright in the general flood, 
immovable as the Pyramids of Egypt. Unlike their oriental cotem- 
poraries, no tradition declares that in them treasures of wisdom are 
buried. 

From amid the " myrtle leaves," by Rauschenwasser, I saw two 
hopeful youths appear. A female, who there carried on her business, 
accompanied them as far as the highway, clapped with a practised 
hand the meagre legs of the horses, laughed aloud, as one of the cav- 
aliers, inspired with a very peculiar spirit of gallantry, gave her a 
'•cut behind" with his whip, and travelled off for Bovden. The 



— 53 — 

youths, however, rattled along towards Norten, trilling in a highly 
intelligent manner., and singing the Rossinian lay of "Drink beer, 
pretty, pretty 'Liza !" These sounds I continued to hear when far in 
the distance, and after I had long lost sight of the amiable vocalists, 
as their horses, which appeared to be gifted with characters of extreme 
German deliberation, were spurred and lashed in a most excruciating 
style. In no place is the skinning alive of horses carried to such an 
extent as in Gottingen ; and often, when I beheld some lame and 
sweating hack, who, to earn the scraps of fodder which maintained 
his wretched life, was obliged to endure the torment of some roaring 
blade, or draw a whole wagon load of students — I reflected : ' ' Unfor- 
tunate beast, — most certainly thy first ancestors, in some horse para- 
dise, did eat of forbidden oats." 

In the tavern at Norten I again met my two vocalists. One 
devoured a herring-salad, and the other amused himself with the 
leathern complexioned waiting-maid, Fusia Canina, also known as 
Stepping-Bird.* He passed from compliments to caresses, until 
they became finally " hand in glove" together. To lighten my knap- 
sack, I extracted from it a pair of blue pantaloons, which were some- 
what remarkable in a historical point of view, and presented them to 
the little waiter, whom we called Humming Bird. The old landlady, 
Bussenia, brought me bread and Gutter, and greatly lamented that I 
so seldom visited her, for she loved me dearly. 

Beyond Norten the sun flashed high in heaven. He evidently 
wished to treat me honorably, and warmed my heart until all the 
unripe thoughts which it contained came to full growth. The admi- 
rable Sun Tavern, in Norten, should not be passed over in silence, for 
it was there that I breakfasted. All the dishes were excellent, and 
suited me far better than the wearisome, academical courses of salt- 
less, leathery dried fish and cabbage rechavffee, which characterized 
both our physical and mental pabulum at Gottingen. After I had 
somewhat appeased my appetite, I remarked in the same room of the 
tavern, a gentleman and two ladies, who appeared about to depart on 
their journey. The cavalier was clad entirely in green, even to his 
eyes, over which a pair of green spectacles cast in turn a verdigrease 
glow upon his copper-red nose. The gentleman's general appear- 
ance was that which we may presume King Nebuchadnezzar to 
have presented, after having passed a few years out at grass. 



* Trittvogel, or " Step-bird," signifies, in German student slang, one who demands money; 
4 Mauiehean,or creditor. &c [Vote by Translator.'] 



— 54 — 

The Green One requested me to recommend him to a hotel in Gb'ttin. 
gen, and I advised him when there to inquire of the first convergent 
student for the Hotel de Brlibach. One lady was evidently his wife : 
an altogether extensively constructed dame, gifted with a mile-square 
countenance, with dimples in her cheeks which looked like hide-and- 
go-seek holes for well grown cupids. A copious double chin appeared 
below, like an imperfect continuation of the face, while her high-piled 
bosom, which was defended by stiff points of lace, and a many-cor- 
nered collar, as if by turrets and bastions, reminded one of a fortress. 
Still it is by no means certain that this fortress would have resisted 
an ass laden with gold, any more than did that of which Philip of 
Macedon spoke. The other lady, her sister, seemed her extreme 
anti-type. If the one were descended from Pharaoh's fat kine, the 
other was as certainly derived from the lean. Her face was but a 
mouth between two ears ; her breast was as inconsolably comfortless 
and dreary as the Llineburger heath ; while her altogether dried-up 
figure reminded one of a charity-table for poor students of theology. 
Both ladies asked me, in a breath, if respectable people lodged in the 
Hotel de Brlibach? I assented to this question with certainty, and a 
clear conscience, and as the charming trio drove away, I waved my 
hand to them many times from the window. The landlord of the 
Sun laughed, however, in his sleeve, being probably aware that the 
Hotel de Brlibach was a name bestowed by the students of Gottin- 
gen upon their University prison. 

Beyond Nbrdheim mountain ridges begin to appear, and the travel- 
ler occasionally meets with a picturesque eminence. The wayfarers 
whom I encountered were principally pedlars, travelling to the 
Brunswick fair, and among them were swarms of women, every one 
of whom bore on her back an incredibly large pack, covered with 
linen. In these packs were cages, containing every variety of sing- 
ing birds, which continually chirped and sung, while their bearers 
merrily hopped along and sang together. A queer fancy came into 
my head, that I beheld one bird carrying others to market. 

The night was dark as pitch as I entered Osferode. I had no 
appetite for supper, and at once went to bed. I was as tired as a 
dog and slept like a god. In my dreams I returned to Gottingen, 
even to its very library. I stood in a corner of the Hall of Juris- 
prudence, turning over old dissertations, lost myself in reading, and 
when I finally looked up, remarked to my astonishment that it was 
night, and that the Hall was illuminated by innumerable over-hang- 
ing crystal chandeliers. The bell of the neighbouring church struck 



__ oo 

twelve, the hall doors slowly opened, and there entered a superb 
colossal female form, reverentially accompanied by the members and 
hangers on of the legal faculty. The giantess though advanced in 
years retained in her countenance traces of extreme beauty, and her 
every glance indicated the sublime Titaness, the mighty Themis. 
The sword and balance were carelessly grasped in her right hand, 
while with the left she held a roll of parchment. Two young Doctores 
Juris bore the train of her faded grey robe; by her right side the 
lean Court Counsellor Rusticus, the Lycurgus of Hanover, fluttered 
here and there like a zephyr, declaiming extracts from his last legal 
essay, while by her left, her cavaliere servanfe, the privy legal coun- 
sellor Cajacius, hobbled gaily and gallantly along, constantly crack- 
ing legal jokes, laughing himself so heartily at his own wit, that 
even the serious goddess often smiled and bent over him, exclaiming 
as she tapped him on the shoulder with the great parchment roll, 
I Thou little scamp who cuttest down the tree from the top !" All 
of the gentlemen who formed her escort now drew nigh in turn, each 
having something to remark or jest over, either a freshly worked up 
system, or a miserable little hypothesis, or some similar abortion of 
their own brains. Through the open door of the hall now entered 
many strange gentlemen, wmo announced themselves as the remain- 
ing magnates of the illustrious order; mostly angular suspicious 
looking fellows, who with extreme complacency. blazed away with 
their definitions and hair-splittings, disputing over every scrap of a 
title to the title of a pandect. And other forms continually flocked 
in, the forms of those who were learned in law in the olden time, — 
men in antiquated costume, with long counsellor's wigs and forgotten 
faces, who expressed themselves greatly astonished that they, the 
widely famed of the previous century, should not meet witli especial 
consideration ; and these, after their manner, joined in the general 
chattering and screaming, which like ocean breakers became louder 
and madder around the mighty Goddess, until she, bursting from 
impatience suddenly; cried, in a tone of the most agonized Titanic 
pain, " Silence ! Silence ? I hear the voice of the loved Prometheus, — 
mocking cunning and brute force are chaining the innocent One 
to the rock of martyrdom, and all your prattling and quarrelling will 
not allay his wounds or break his fetters !" So cried the Goddess, 
and rivulets of tears sprang from her eyes, the entire assembly 
howled as if in the agonies of death, the ceiling of the hall burst 
asunder, the books tumbled madly from their shelves, and in vain 
the portrait of old Munchausen called out "order" from his frame. 



00 



for all crushed and raged more wildly around. I sought refuge from 
this Bedlam broke loose, in the Hall of History, near that gracious 
spot where the holy images of the Apollo Belvedere and the Yenus 
de Medici stand near together, and I knelt at the feet of the Goddess 
of Beauty, in her glance I forgot all the wearisome barren labour 
which I had passed, my eyes drank in with intoxication the symmetry 
and immortal loveliness of her infinitely blessed form ; Hellenic calm 
swept through my soul, while above my head, Phoebus Apollo poured 
forth like heavenly blessings, the sweetest tones of his lyre. 

Awaking, I continued to hear a pleasant musical ringing. The 
flocks were on their way to pasture, and their bells were tinkling. 
The blessed golden sunlight shone through the window, illuminating 
the pictures on the walls of my room. They were sketches from the 
war of Independence, and among them were placed representations 
of the execution of Louis XVI. on the guillotine, and other decapi- 
tations which no one could behold without thanking God that he lay 
quietly in bed, drinking excellent coffee, and with his head com- 
fortably adjusted upon neck and shoulders. 

After I had drunk my coffee, dressed myself, read the inscriptions 
upon the window-panes and set everything straight in the inn, 1 
left Osterode. 

This town contains a certain quantity of houses and a given 
number of inhabitants, among whom are divers and sundry souls, 
as may be ascertained in detail from " Gottschalk's Pocket Book 
for Hartz-travellers." Ere I struck into the highway I ascended 
the ruins of the very ancient Osteroder Burg. They consisted of 
merely the half of a great, thick-wailed tower, which appeared to be 
fairly honeycombed by time. The road to Olausthal, led me again 
up-hill, and from one of the first eminences I looked back into the 
dale where Osterode, with its red roofs peeps out from among the 
green fir woods, like a moss-rose from amid its leaves. The pleasant 
sunlight inspired gentle, child-like feelings. From this spot the 
imposing rear of the remaining portion of the tower may be seen 
to advantage. 

After proceeding a little distance, I overtook and went along with 
a travelling journeyman, who came from Brunswick, and related to 
me, that it was generally believed in that city, that their young Duke 
had been taken prisoner by the Turks during his tour in the Holy 
Land, and could only be ransomed by an enormous" sum. The exten- 
sive, travels of the Duke probably originated this tale. The people 
at large, still preserve that traditional fable-loving train of ideas, 






— 57 



which is so pleasantly shown in their " Duke Ernst. - ' The narrator 
of this news, was a tailor, a neat little youth, but so thin, that the 
stars might have shone through him as through Ossian's ghosts. 
Altogether, he formed a vulgar mixture of affectation, whim and 
melancholy. This was peculiarly expressed in the droll and affecting 
manner in which he sang that extraordinary popular ballad, " A 
beetle sat upon the hedge, summ, snmm /" That is a pleasant pecu- 
liarity of us G-ermans. No one is so crazy but that he may find a 
crazier comrade, who will understand him. Only a German can 
appreciate that song, and in the same breath laugh and cry himself 
to death over it. On this occasion, I also remarked the depth to 
which the words of Goethe have penetrated into the national life. 
My lean comrade trilled occasionally as he went along. " Joyful and 
sorrowful, thoughts are free !" Such a corruption of a text is usual 

. among the multitude. He also sang a song in which " Lottie by the 
grave of Werther" wept. The tailor ran over with sentimentalism in 
the words, " Sadly by the rose-beds now I weep, where the late moon 
found us oft alone ! Moaning where the silver fountains sleep, which 
rippled once delight in every tone." But he soon became capricious 
and petulant, remarking, that " We have a Prussian in the tavern at 
Cassel, who makes exactly such songs, himself. He can't sew a 
single decent stitch ; when he has a penny in his pocket he always 
has twopence worth of thirst with it, and when he has a drop in his 

I eye, he takes heaven to be a blue jacket, weeps like a roof-spout, 
and sings a song with double poetry." I desired an explanation of 
this last expression, but my tailoring friend, hopped about on his 
walking-cane legs and cried incessantly, " Double poetry is double 
poetry, and nothing else." Finally, I ascertained that he meant 

i doubly rhymed poems, or stanzas. Meanwhile, owing to his extra 

. exertion, and an adverse wind, the Knight of the Needle became 

. sadly weary. It is true that he still made a great pretence of 
advancing, and blustered, " Now I will take the road between my 

' legs." But he, immediately after, explained that his feet were blis- 
tered, and that the world was by far too extensive, and finally sinking- 
down at the foot of a tree, he moved his delicate little head like the 
tail of a troubled lamb, and woefully smiling, murmured, " Here am 
I, poor vagabond, already again weary !" 

The hills here became steeper, the fir-woods waved below like a 

i green sea, and white clouds above, sailed along over the blue sky. 
The wildness of the region was, however, tamed by its uniformity 

■ and the simplicity of its elements. Nature, like a true poet, abhors 



— 58 — 

abrupt transitions. Clouds — however fantastically formed they may 
at times appear — still have a white, or at least, a subdued hue, har- 
m\ miously corresponding with the blue heaven and the green earth ; 
so that all the colours of a landscape blend into each other like soft 
music, and every glance at such a natural picture, tranquillizes and 
re-assures the soul. The late Hoffman would have painted the 
clouds spotted and checquered. And like a great poet, Nature knows 
how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means. 
There she has only a sun, trees and flowers, water and love. Of 
course, if the latter be lacking in the heart of the observer, the whole 
will, in all probability, present but a poor appearance, the sun will 
be so and so many miles in diameter, the trees are for fire-wood, the 
flowers are classified according to their stamens, and the water is 
wet. 

A little boy who was gathering brushwood in the forest for his 
sick uncle, pointed out to me the village of Lerrbach, whose little 
huts with grey roofs scatter along for two miles through the valley. 
" There," said he, " live idiots with goitres, and white negroes." By 
white negroes the people mean albinos. The little fellow lived on 
terms of peculiar understanding with the trees, addressing them like 
old acquaintances, while they in turn seemed by their waving and 
rustling to return his salutations. He chirped like a thistle-finch, 
many birds around answered his call, and ere I was aware, he had 
disappeared with his little bare feet and his bundle of brush, amid 
the thickets. " Children," thought I, " are younger than we, they 
can perhaps remember when they were once trees or birds, and are, 
consequently still able to understand them. We of larger growth, 
are alas, too old for that, and carry about in our heads too much legal 
lore, and too many sorrows and bad verses." But the time when it 
was otherwise, recurred vividly to me as I entered Clausthal. In 
this pretty little mountain town, which the traveller does not behold 
until he stands directly before it, I arrived just as the clock was 
striking twelve and the children came tumbling merrily out of school. 
The little rogues — nearly all red-cheeked, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, 
sprang and shouted, and awoke in me, melancholy and cheerful 
memories, how I once myself, as a little boy, sat all the forenoon 
long in a gloomy catholic cloister school in Diisseldorf, without so much 
as daring to stand up, enduring meanwhile such a terrible amount of 
Latin, whipping and geography, and how I too, hurrahed and rejoiced 
beyond all measure, when the old Franciscan clock at last struck 
twelve. The children saw by my knapsack that I was a stranger, 






— 59 — 

and greeted me in the most hospitable manner. One of the boya 
told me that they had just had a lesson in religion, 'and showed me 
the Eoyal Hanoverian Catechism, from which they were questioned 
on Christianity. This little book was very badly printed, so that I 
greatly feared that the doctrines of faith made thereby but an 
unpleasant blotting-paper sort of impression upon the children's 
minds. I was also shocked at observing that the multiplication table 
contrasted with the Holy Trinity on the last page of the catechism, 
as it at once occurred to me that by this means the minds of the 
ehildren might, even in their earliest years, be led to the most sinful 
skepticism. We Prussians are more intelligent, and in our zeal for 
converting those heathens who are familiar with arithmetic, take 
good care not to print the multiplication table behind the catechism. 

I dined in the " Crown," at Clausthal. My repast consisted of 
spring-green, parsley-soup, violet-blue cabbage, a pile of roast veal, 
which resembled Chimborazo in miniature, and a sort of smoked her- 
rings, called Buckings, from their inventor, William Bucking, who 
died in 1447, and who on account of the invention was so greatly 
honored by Charles V. that the great monarch in 1556 made a- 
journey from Middleburg to Bievlied in Zealand, for the express pur- 
pose of visiting the grave of the great fish-drier. How exquisitely 
such dishes taste when we are familiar with their historical associa- 
tions. Unfortunately, my after-dinner coffee was spoiled by a youth, 
who in conversing with me ran on in such an outrageous strain of 
noise and vanity that the milk was soured. He was a young counter- 
jumper, wearing twenty-five variegated waistcoats, and as many gold/ 
seals, rings, breastpins, &c. He seemed like a monkey who having 
put on a red coat had resolved within himself that clothes make the 
man. This gentleman had got by heart a vast amount of charades 
and anecdotes, which he continually repeated in the most inappro- 
priate places. He asked for the news in Gb'ttingen, and I informed 
him that a decree had been recently published there by the Academical 
Senate, forbidding any one, under penalty of three dollars, to dock 
puppies' tails, — because during the dog-days, mad dogs invariably ran 
with their tails between their legs, thus giving a warning indication 
of the existence of hydrophobia, which could not be perceived were 
the caudal appendage absent. After dinner I went forth to visit the 
mines, the mint, and the silver refineries. 

In the silver refinery as has frequently been my luck in life, I could 
get no glimpse of the precious metal. In the mint I succeeded better, 
and ^aw how *noney was made. Beyond thi3 I have never been able 



- 60 — 

to advance. On such occasions, mine has invariably been the spec- 
tator's part, and I verily believe, that if it should rain dollars from 
Heaven, the coins would only knock holes in my head, while the 
children of Israel would merrily gather up the silver manna. With 
feelings in which comic reverence was blended with emotion, I beheld 
the new-born shining dollars, took one as it came fresh from the stamp, 
in my hand, and said to it : " Young Dollar ! what a destiny awaits 
thee ! what a cause wilt thou be of good and of evil ! How thou wilt 
protect vice and patch up virtue, how thou wilt be beloved and 
accursed ! how thou wilt aid in debauchery, pandering, lying, and 
murdering ! how thou wilt restlessly roll along through clean and dirty 
hands for centuries, until finally laden with trespasses, and weary 
with sin, thou wilt be gathered again unto thine own, in the bosom 
of an Abraham, who will melt thee down and purify thee, and form 
thee into a new and better being !" 

I will narrate in detail my visit to " Dorothea" and " Caroline," the 
two principal Clausthaler mines, having found them very interesting. 

Half a German mile from the town, are situated two large, dingy 
buildings. Here the traveller is transferred to the care of the miners. 
These men wear dark, and generally steel-blue colored, jackets, of 
ample girth descending to the hips, with pantaloons of a similar hue, 
a leather apron bound on behind, and a rimless green felt hat, which 
resembles a decapitated nine-pin. In such a garb, with the exception 
of the "back-leather" the visitor is also clad, and a miner, his "leader," 
after lighting his mine-lamp, conducts him to a gloomy entrance, resem- 
bling a chimney hole, descends as far -as the breast, gives him a few 
directions relative to grasping the ladder, and carelessly requests him 
to follow. The affair is entirely devoid of danger, though it at first 
appears quite otherwise to those unacquainted with the mysteries of 
mining. Even the putting on of the dark convict-dress awakens very 
peculiar sensations. Then one must clamber down on all fours, the 
dark hole is so very dark, and Lord only knows how long the ladder 
may be ! But we soon remark that this is not the only ladder in the 
black eternity around, for there are many of from fifteen to twenty 
rounds apiece, each standing upon a board capable of supporting a 
man, and from which a new hole leads in turn to a new ladder. I 
first entered the Caroline, the dirtiest and most disagreeable of that 
name with whom I ever had the pleasure of becoming acquainted. 
The rounds of the ladders were covered with w r et mud. And from 
one ladder we descended to another with the guide ever in advance, 
continuallv assuring us that there is no danger so long as we hold 



— 61 — 

firmly to the rounds and do not look at our feet, and that we must 
not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the buzzing barrel- 
rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was knocked 
down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is a 
confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against 
beams and ropes which are in motion, winding up and raising barrels 
of broken ore or of water. Occasionally we pass galleries hewn in 
the rock, called " stulms," where the ore may be seen growing, and 
where some solitary miner sits the livelong day, wearily hammering 
pieces from the walls. I did not descend to those deepest depths, 
where it is reported that the people on the other side of the world, in 
America, may be heard crying, " Hurrah for Lafayette !" Where I 
went, seemed to me, however, deep enough in all conscience ; amid 
an endless roaring and rattling, the mysterious sounds of machinery, 
the rush of subterranean streams, ^p sickening clouds of ore dust 
continually rising, water dripping on all sides, and the miner's lamp 
gradually growing dimmer and dimmer. The effect was really benumb- 
fag, I breathed with difficulty, and held with trouble to the slippery 
rounds. It was not fright which overpowered me, but oddly enough, 
down there in the depths, I remembered that a year before, about 
the same time, I had been in a storm on the North Sea, and I now 
felt that it would be an agreeable change could I feel the rocking 
of the ship, hear the wind with its thunder-trumpet tones, while amid 
its lulls sounded the hearty cry of the sailors, and all above was freshly 
swept by God's own free air. Yes, Air ! — Panting for air, I rapidly 
climbed several dozens of ladders, and my guide led me through a 
narrow and very long gallery towards the Dorothea mine. Here it 
is airier and fresher, and the ladders are cleaner, though at the same 
time longer than in the Caroline. I felt revived and more cheer- 
ful, particularly as I observed indications of human beings. Far 
below I saw wandering, wavering lights, miners with their lamps came 
one by one upwards, with the greeting, " Good luck to you !" and 
receiving the same salutation from us, went onwards and upwards. 
Something like a friendly and quiet, yet at the same time terrific and 
enigmatical, recollection flitted across my mind as I met the deep 
glances and earnest, pale faces of these men, mysteriously illuminated 
by their lanterns, and thought how they had worked all day in lonely 
and secret places in the mines, and how they now longed for the 
blessed light of day, and for the glances of wives and children. 

My guide himself was a throroughly honest, honorable, olundering 
German being. With inward joy he pointed out to me the stumi" 



— 62 — 

where the Duke of Cambridge, when he visited the mines, dined witb 
all his train, and where the long wooden table yet stands, with the 
accompanying great chair, made of ore, in which the Duke sat. "This 
is to remain as an eternal memorial," said the good miner, and he 
related with enthusiasm how many festivities had then taken place, 
how the entire stulm had been adorned with lamps, flowers, and deco- 
rations of leaves ; how a miner boy had played on the cithern and 
sung ; how the dear, delighted fat Duke had drained many healths, 
and what a number of miners (himself especially) would cheerfully die 
for the dear, fat Duke, and for the whole house of Hanover. I am 
moved to my very heart when I see loyalty thus manifested in all its 
natural simplicity. It is such a beautiful sentiment ! And such a 
purely German sentiment! Other people may be more intelligent and 
wittier, and more agreeable, but none are so faithful as the real Ger- 
man race. Did I not know that fidelity is as old as the world, I 
would believe that a German nad invented it. German fidelity is no 
modern " yours very truly," or, " I remain your humble servant." Ii> 
your courts, ye German princes, ye should cause to be sung, and sung 
again, the old ballad of The trusty Eckhart and the base Burgund, 
who slew Eckhart's seven children, and still found him faithful. Ye 
have the truest people in the world, and ye err when ye deem that the 
old, intelligent, trusty hound has suddenly gone mad, and snaps at 
your sacred calves ! 

And like German fidelity, the little mine-lamp has guided us 
quietly and securely, without much flickering or flaring, through the 
labyrinth of shafts and stulms. We jump from the gloomy moun- 
tain-night — sunlight flashes around: — "Luck to you!" 

Most of the miners dwell in Clausthal, and in the adjoining small 
town of Zellerfeld. I visited several of these brave fellows, observed 
their little household arrangements, heard many of their songs, which 
they skilfully accompany with their favorite instrument, the cithern, 
and listened to old mining legends, and to their prayers, which they 
are accustomed to daily offer in company ere they descend the gloomy 
shaft. And many a good prayer did I offer up with them. One old 
climber even thought that I ought to remain among them, and be- 
come a man of the mines, and as I, after all, departed, he gave me a 
message to his brother, who dwelt near Goslar, and many kisses for 
his darling niece. 

Immovably tranquil as the life of these men may appear, it is, 
notwithstanding, a real and vivid life. That ancient, trembling crone 
who sits before the great clothe* -press and behind a stove, may have 



— 63 — 

been there for a quarter of a century, and all her thinking and 
feeling, is, beyond a doubt, intimately blended with every corner 
of the stove and the carvings of the press. And clothes-press and 
stove live, — for a human being hath breathed into them a portion of 
its soul. 

Only a life of this deep-looking into phenomena and its " imme- 
diateness," could originate the German popular tale whose peculiarity 
consists in this, — that in it, not only animals and plants, but also 
objects apparently inanimate, speak and act. To thinking, harmless 
beings who dwelt in the quiet home-ness of their lowly mountain 
cabins or forest huts, the inner life of these objects was gradually 
revealed, they acquired a necessary and consequential character, 
a sweet blending of fantasy and pure human reflection. This is the 
reason why, in such fables, we find the extreme of singularity allied 
to a spirit of perfect self-intelligence, as when the pin and the needle 
wander forth from the tailor's home and are bewildered in the dark ; 
when the straw and the coal seek to cross the brook and are de- 
stroyed ;* when the dust-pan and broom quarrel and fight on the 
stairs ; when the interrogated mirror of " Snow-drop" shows the 
image of the fairest lady, and when even drops of blood begin to 
utter dark words of the deepest compassion. And this is the reason 
why our life in childhood is so infinitely significant, for then all things 
are of the same importance, nothing escapes our attention, there is 
equality in every impression ; while, when more advanced in years, 
we must act with design, busy ourselves more exclusively with 
particulars, carefully exchange the pure gold of observation for the 
paper currency of book-definitions, and win in the breadth of life what 
we have lost in depth. Now, we are grown-up, respectable people, 
we often inhabit new dwellings, the house-maid daily cleans them, 
and changes at her will the position of the furniture which interests 
us but little, as it is either new, or may belong to-day to Jack, 
to-morrow to Isaac. Even our very clothes are strange to us, we 
hardly know how many buttons there are on the coat we wear, — for 
we change our garments as often as possible, and none of them 
remain deeply identified with our external or inner history. We 



* This story of the straw, the coal and the twan, is curiously Latinized in the Nug<E 
Yenales. 

" Pruna, Faba, et Stramen rivum transire laborant, seque idio in ripis Stramen utrim- 
que locat. Sic quasi per pontein I'aba transit, Pruna sed urit Stramen, et in inedias 
praecipitatur aquas, Hoc cernens nimio risu faba rumpitur imo parte sui, hancqus 
quasi tacta pudore tegit. — [Note by Translator.] 



- 64 — 

scarce dare to think how that brown vest once looked, which attracted 
so much laughter, and yet on the broad stripes of which, the dear 
hand of the loved one so gently rested ! 

The old dame who sat before the clothes-press and behind the 
stove, wore a flowered dress of some old-fashioned material, which 
had been the bridal-robe of her long buried mother. Her great 
grandson, a flashing-eyed blonde boy, clad in a miner's dress, knelt 
at her feet, and counted the flowers on her dress. It may be that 
she has narrated to him many a story connected with that dress ; 
serious or pretty stories, which the boy will not readily forget, which 
will often recur to him, when he, a grown up man, works alone in the 
midnight galleries of the Caroline, and which he in turn will narrate 
when the dear grandmother has long been dead ; and he himself, a 
silver-haired, tranquil old man, sits amid the circle of his grand- 
children before the great clothes-press and behind the oven. 

I lodged that night in " The Crown," where I had the pleasure of 

meeting and paying my respects to the old Court Counsellor B , 

of Grottingen. Having inscribed my name in the book of arrivals, I 
found therein the honoured autograph of Adalbeet von Chamisso, 
the biographer of the immortal Schlemihl. The landlord remarked 
of Chamisso, that the gentleman had arrived during one terrible 
storm, and departed in another. 

Finding the next morning that I must lighten my knapsack. 1 
threw overboard the pair of boots, and arose and went forth unto 
Goslar. There I arrived without knowing how. This much alone 
do I remember, that I sauntered up and down hill, gazing upon 
many a lovely meadow vale. Silver waters rippled and rustled, 
sweet wood-birds sang, the bells of the flocks tinkled, the many 
shaded green trees were gilded by the sun, and over all the blue silk 
canopy of Heaven was so transparent that I could look through the 
depths even to the Holy of Holies, where angels sat at the feet of God, 
studying sublime thorough-bass in the features of the eternal coun- 
tenance. But I was all the time lost in a dream of the previous 
night, and which I could not banish. It was an echo of the old 
legend, how a knight descended into a deep fountain, beneath which 
the fairest princess of the world lay buried in a death-like magic 
slumber. I myself was the knight, and the dark mine of Clausthal 
was the fountain. Suddenly, innumerable lights gleamed around 
me, wakeful dwarfs leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing 
angrily, cutting at me with their short swords, blowing terribly on 
horns, which ever summoned more and more of their comrades, and 






— 65 — 

frantically nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down 
with my sword, and the blood flowed, I for the first time remarked 
that they were not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming long bearded 
thistle tops, which I had the day before hewed down on the highway 
with my stick. At last they all vanished and I came to a splendid 
lighted hall, in the midst of which stood my heart's loved one, veiled 
in white and immovable as a statue. I kissed her mouth, and then 
■ — oh Heavens ! — I felt the blessed breath of her soul and the sweet 
tremor of her lovely lips. It seemed that I heard the divine com- 
mand " Let there be light !" and a dazzling flash of eternal light shot 
down, but at the same instant it was again night, and all ran chaoti- 
cally together into a wild desolate sea ! A wild desolate sea ! over 
whose foaming waves the ghosts of the departed madly chased each 
other, the white shrouds floating on the wind, while behind all, 
goading them on with cracking whip, ran a many coloured harlequin, 
— and I was the harlequin. Suddenly from the black waves the sea- 
monsters raised their misshapen heads, and yawned towards me, 
with extended jaws, and I awoke in terror. 

Alas ! how the finest dreams may be spoiled ! The knight, in fact 
when he has found the lady, ought to cut a piece from her priceless 
veil, and after she has recovered from her magic sleep and sits again 
in glory in her hall, he should approach her and say, " My fairest 
princess, dost thou not know me?" Then she will answer, "My 
bravest knight, I know thee not !" And then he shows her the piece 
cut from her veil, exactly fitting the deficiency, and she knows that 
he is her deliverer, and both tenderly embrace, and the trumpets 
sound, and the marriage is celebrated ! 

It is really a very peculiar misfortune that my love-dreams so seldom 
have so fine a conclusion. 

The name of Goslar rings so pleasantly, and there are so many 
very ancient and imperial associations connected therewith, that I 
had hoped to find an imposing and stately town. But it is always 
the same old story when we examine celebrities too closely! I 
found a nest of houses, drilled in every direction with narrow 
streets of labyrinthine crookedness, and amid which a miserable 
stream, probably the Goslar, winds its flat and melancholy way. The 
pavement of the town is as ragged as Berlin hexameters. Only the 
antiquities which are imbedded in the frame, or mounting, of the 
city: that is to say, its remnants of walls, towers and battlements, 
^ive the place a piquant look. One of these towers, known as the 
Zioinger, or donjon-keep, has walls of such extraordinary thickness, 

6* 



that entire rooms are excavated therein. The open place before the 
town, where the world-renowned shooting matches are held, is a beau- 
tiful large plain surrounded by high mountains. The market is small, 
and in its midst is a spring-fountain, the water from which pours into 
a great metallic basin. When an alarm of fire is raised, they strike 
strongly on this cup-formed basin, which gives out a very loud vibra- 
tion. Nothing is known of the origin of this work. Some say that 
the devil placed it once during the night on the spot where it stands 
In those days people were as yet fools, nor was the devil any wiser, 
and they mutually exchanged gifts. 

The town hall of Goslar is a white-washed police-station. The 
Guildhall, hard by, has a somewhat better appearance. In this 
building, equidistant from roof and ceiling, stand the statues of the 
German emperor&. Partly gilded, and altogether of a smoke-black 
hue, they look with their sceptres and globes of empire, like roasted 
college beadles. One of fhe emperors holds a sword, instead of a 
sceptre. I cannot imagine the reason of this variation from the estab- 
lished order, though it has doubtless some occult signification, as 
Germans have the remarkable peculiarity of meaning something in 
whatever they do. 

In Gottschalk's " Handbook," I had read much of the very ancient 
Dom T or Cathedral, and of the far-famed imperial throne at Goslar. 
But when I wished to see these curiosities, I was informed that the 
zhurch had been torn down, and that the throne had been carried to 
Berlin. We live in deeply significant times, when millennial churches 
are shattered to fragments, and imperial thrones are tumbled into the 
Lumber room. 

A few memorials of the late cathedral of happy memory, are still 
preserved in the church of St. Stephen. These consist of stained 
glass pictures of great beauty, a few indifferent paintings, including a 
Lucas Cranach, a wooden Christ crucified, and a heathen altar of 
some unknown metal. This latter resembles a long square box, and 
is supported by four caryatides, which in a bowed position hold their 
hands over their heads, and make the most hideous grimaces. But 
far more hideous is the adjacent wooden crucifix of which I have just 
spoken. This head of Christ, with its real hair and thorns and 
blood-stained countenance, represents, in the most masterly manner, 
the death of a man, — but not of a divinely born Saviour. Nothing 
but physical suffering is portrayed in this image,— not the sublime 
poetry of pain. Such a work would be more appropriately placed in 

nail of anatomv than in a house of the Lord, 



— 67 — 

I lodged in a tavern, near the market, where I should have enjo3'ed 
my dinner much better, if the landlord with his long, superfluous face, 
and his still longer questions, had not planted himself opposite to me. 
Fortunately I was soon relieved by the arrival of another stranger, 
who was obliged to run in turn the gauntlet of quisf quid? ubi'f 
quibus avxiliis ? cvr? quomodo? quandof This stranger was an old, 
weary, worn-out man, who, as it appeared. from his conversation, had 
been all over the world, had resided very long in Batavia, had made 
much money, and lost it all, and who now after thirty years' absence 
was returning to Quedlinburg, his native city, — " for," said he, " our 
family has there its hereditary tomb." The landlord here made the 
highly intelligent remark, that it was all the same thing to the 
soul, where the body was buried. " Have you scriptural authority 
for that ?" retorted the stranger, while mysterious and crafty wrinkles 
circled around his pinched lips and faded eyes. ".But," he added, as 
if nervously desirous of conciliating, — " I mean no harm against graves 
in foreign lands, — oh, no ! — the Turks bury their dead more beauti- 
fully than we ours ; their church-yards are perfect gardens, and there 
they sit by their white turbaned grave-stones under cypress trees, 
and stroke their grave beards, and calmly smoke their Turkish tobacco 
from their long Turkish pipes ; and then among the Chinese, it is a 
real pleasure to see how genteelly they walk around, and pray, and 
drink tea among the graves of their ancestors, and how beautifully 
they bedeck the beloved tombs with all sorts of gilt lacquered work, 
I porcelain images, bits of colored silk, fresh flowers and variegated lan- 
I terns — all very fine indeed — how far is it yet to Quedlinberg ?" 

The church-yard at Goslar did not appeal very strongly to my 
feelings. But a certain very pretty blonde-ringletted head which 
peeped smilingly from a parterre window did. After dinner 1 again 
took an observation of this fascinating window, but instead of a 
maiden, I beheld a vase containing white bell-flowers. I clambered 
up, stole the flowers, put them neatly in my cap, and descended, 
unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and goggle eyes with 
which the street population, and especially the old women, regarded 
this qualified theft. As 1, an hour later, passed by the same house, 
the beauty stood by the window, and as she saw the flowers in my 
cap, she blushed like a ruby, and started back. This time I had seen 
the beautiful face to better advantage ; it was a sweet transparent 
ncarnation of summer evening air, moonshine, nightingale notes and 
'ose-perfume. Later — in the twilight hour, she was standing at the 
loor. I came — I drew near — she slowly retreated into the dark 



— 68 — 

entry — I followed, and seizing her hand, said, " I am a lover of 
beautiful flowers and of kisses, and when they are not given to me, I 
steal them." Here I quickly snatched a kiss, and as she was about 
to fly, I whispered apologetically, " To-morrow I leave this town and 
never return again." Then I perceived a faint pressure of the lovely 
lips and of the little hand, and I — went smiling away. Yes, I must 
smile when I reflect that this was precisely the magic formula by 
which our red and blue-coated cavaliers more frequently win female 
hearts, than by their mustachioed attractiveness. " To-morrow I leave, 
and never return again !" 

My chamber commanded a fine view towards Eammelsberg. It 
was a lovely evening. Night was out hunting on her black steed, and 
the long cloud mane fluttered on the wind. I stood at my window 
watching the moon. Is there really a "man in the moon?" The 
Slavonians assert that there is such a being named Clotar, and he 
causes the moon to grow by watering it. When I was little they 
told me that the moon was a fruit, and that when it was ripe, it was 
picked and laid away, amid a vast collection of old full moons, in 
a great bureau, which stood at the end of the world, where it is 
nailed up with boards. As I grew older, I remarked that the world 
was not by any means so limited as I had supposed it to be, and that 
human intelligence had broken up the wooden bureau, and with a 
terrible " Hand of Glory" had opened all the seven heavens. Immor- 
tality — dazzling idea ! who first imagined thee ! Was it some jolly 
burgher of Nuremburg, who with night-cap on his head, and white 
clay pipe in mouih, sat on some pleasant summer evening before his 
door, and reflected in all his comfort, that it would be right pleasant, 
if, with unextinguishable pipe, and endless breath, he could thus 
vegetate onwards for a blessed eternity ? Or was it a lover, who in 
the arms of his loved one, thought the immortality-thought, and that 
because he could think and feel naught beside ! — Love ! Immortality ! 
it speedily became so hot in my breast, that I thought the geogra- 
phers had misplaced the equator, and that it now ran directly through 
my heart. And from my heart poured out the feeling of love ; — it 
poured forth with wild longing into the broad night. The flowers in 
the garden beneath my window breathed a stronger perfume. Per- 
fumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart feels most 
powerful emotions in the night, when it believes itself to be alone 
and unperceived, so also do the flowers, soft-minded, yet ashamed, 
appear to await for concealing darkness, that they may give themselves 
wholly up to their feelings, and breathe them out in sweet odours. 



— 69 — 

Four forth, ye perfumes of my heart, and seek beyond yon bine 
mountain for the loved one of my dreams ! Now she lies in slumber, 
at her feet kneel angels, and if she smiles in sleep it is a prayer which 
angels repeat ; in her breast is heaven with all its raptures, and as 
she breathes, my heart, though afar, throbs responsively. Behind 
the silken lids of her eyes, the sun has gone down, and when they 
are raised, the sun rises, and birds sing, and the bells of the flock 
tinkle, and I strap on my knapsack and depart. 

During the night which I passed at Goslar, a remarkably curious 
occurrence befel me. Even now, I cannot think of it without terror. 
I am not by nature cowardly, but I fear gliosis almost as much as 
the " Austrian Observer." What is fear ? Does it come from the 
understanding or from the natural disposition ? This was a point 
which I frequently disputed with Doctor Saul Aschek, when we 
accidently met in the Cafe Royal, in Berlin, where I for a long time 
dined. The doctor invariably maintained, that we feared any- 
thing, because we recognized it as fearful, owing to certain 
determinate conclusions of the reason. Only the reason was an 
active power, — not the disposition. While I ate and drank to my 
heart's content, the doctor demonstrated to me the advantages of 
reason. Towards the end of his dissertation, he was accustomed to 
look at his watch and remark conclusively, " Keason is the highest 
principle !" — Reason ! Never do I hear this word without recalling 
Doctor Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his tight fitting transcen- 
dental-gray long coat, and his immovably icy face, which resembled 
: a confused amalgam of geometrical problems. This man, deep in the 
fifties, was a personified straight line. In his striving for the posi- 
I tive, the poor man had philosophised everything beautiful, out of 
existence, and with it, everything like sunshine, religion and flowers, 
so that there remained nothing for him, but a cold positive grave. 
The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two especial objects 
of his malice, and he had even published a pamphlet against the 
latter, in which he had demonstrated its unreasonableness and 
untenableness. In addition to this, he had, however, written a great 
number of books, in all of which, Reason shone forth in all its pecu- 
liar excellence, and as the poor doctor meant what he said in all 
seriousness, they were, so far, deserving of respect. But trie 
great joke consisted precisely in this, that the doctor invariably cut 
such a seriously-absurd figure in not comprehending that which 
every child comprehends, simply because it is a child. I visited the 
doctor several times in his own house, where I found him in company 



— 70 — 

with very pretty girls, for Reason, it seems, however abstract, does 
not prohibit the enjoyment of the things of this world. Once, how- 
ever, when I called, his servant told me that the " Herr Doctor" had 
just died. I experienced as much emotion on this occasion, as if I 
had been told that the " Herr Doctor" had just stepped out. 

To return to G-oslar. " The highest principle is Reason," said I, 
consolingly to myself as I slid into bed. But it availed me nothing. 
I had just been reading in Yarxhagex vox Ense's " German Narra- 
tions," which I had brought with me from Clausthal, that terrible 
tale of a son, who when about to murder his father, was warned in 
the night by the ghost of his mother. The wonderful truthfulness 
with which this story is depicted, caused while reading it, a shudder 
of horror in all my veins. Ghost stories invariably thrill us with 
additional horror when read during a journey and by night in a town, 
in a house, and in a chamber where we have never before been. AVe 
involuntarily reflect, " How many horrors may have been perpetrated 
on this very spot where I now lie ?" Meanwhile, the moon shone 
into my room in a doubtful, suspicious manner ; all kinds of uncalled 
for shapes quivered on the walls, and as I laid me down and glanced 
fearfully around, I beheld — 

There is nothing so " uncanny" as when a man sees his own face by 
moonlight in a mirror. At the same instant there struck a deep- 
booming, yawning bell, and that so slowly and wearily that I firmly 
believed that it had been full twelve hours striking, and that it was 
now time to begin over again. Between the last and next to the last 
tones, there struck in very abruptly, as if irritated and scolding, 
another bell, w r ho was apparently out of patience with the slowness 
of her friend. As the two iron tongues were silenced, and the still- 
ness of death sank over the whole house, I suddenly seemed to hear, 
in the corridor before my chamber, something halting and waddling 
along, like the unsteady steps of a man. At last the door slowly 
opened, and there entered deliberately the late departed Doctor Saul 
Ascher. A cold fever drizzled through marrow and vein — I trem- 
bled like an ivy leaf, and scarcely dared I gaze upon the ghost. He 
appeared as usual, with the same transcendental grey long coat, the 
same abstract legs, and the same mathematical face ; only this latter 
was a little yellower than usual, and the mouth, ^vhich formerly de- 
scribed two angles of 22^- degrees, was pinched together, and the 
circles around the eyes had a somewhat greater radius. Tottering, 
and supporting himself as usual upon his Malacca cane, he approached 
me, and said, in his usual drawling dialect, but in a friendly manner : 



— 71 — 

s " Do not be afraid, nor believe that I am a ghost. It is a deception 

. of your imagination, if you believe that you see me as a ghost. 

| What is a ghost ? Define one. Deduce for me the conditions of the 

] possibility of a ghost. In what reasonable connection does such an 

apparition coincide with reason itself? Reason, I say, reason!" Here 

the ghost proceeded to analyze reason, cited from Kant's Critic of Pure 

Keason, part 2, 1st section, chap. 3, the distinction between phe- 

. nomena and nouomena, then proceeded to construct a hypothetical 

j system of ghosts, piled one syllogism on another, and concluded with 

i the logical proof that there are absolutely no ghosts. Meanwhile the 

i cold sweat beaded over me, my teeth clattered like castanets, and 

i from very agony of soul I nodded an unconditional assent to every 

[ assertion which the phantom Doctor alleged against the absurdity of 

i being afraid of ghosts, and which he demonstrated with such zeal, 

! that finally, in a moment of abstraction, instead of his gold watch, 

[ he drew a handful of grave worms from his vest pocket, and remark- 

j ing his error, replaced them with a ridiculous but terrified haste. 

" The reason is the highest — " Here the clock struck one, and the 

ghost vanished. 

I wandered forth from Goslar the next morning, half at random, 
and half intending to visit the brother of the Clausthaler miner. I 
climbed hill and mount, saw how the sun strove to drive afar the 
mists, and wandered merrily through the trembling woods, while 
around my dreaming head rang the bell flowers of Goslar. The 
mountains stood in their white night-robes, the fir trees were shaking 
sleep out of their branching limbs, the fresh morning wind curled 
their down-drooping green locks, the birds were at morning prayers, 
the meadow-vale flashed like a golden surface sprinked with diamonds, 
and the shepherd passed over it with his bleating flock. I had gone 
astray. Men are ever striking out short cuts and bye-paths, hoping 
to abridge their journey. It is in life as in the Hartz. However, 
there are good souls everywhere to bring us again to the right way 
This they do right willingly, appearing to take a particular satisfac- 
tion, to judge from their self-gratified air, and benevolent tones, 
in pointing out to us the great wanderings which we have made 
from the right road, the abysses and morasses into which we might 
have sunk, and, finally, what a piece of good luck it was for us to 
encounter, betimes, people who knew the road as well as themselves. 
Such a guide-post I found not far from the Hartzburg, in the person 
j of a well-fed citizen of Goslar — a man of shining, double-chinned, 
Blow-cunninsr countenance, who looked as if he had discovered the 



— 72 — 

murrain. We went along for some distance together, and he narrated 
many ghost stories, which would have all been well enough if they 
had not all concluded with an explanation that there was no real 
ghost in the case, but that the spectre in white was a poacher, that 
the wailing sound was caused by the new-born farrow of a wild sow, 
and that the rapping and scraping on the roof was caused by cats. 
" Only when a man is sick," observed my guide, " does he ever believe 
that he sees ghosts ;" and to this he added the remark, that as for his 
own humble self, he was but seldom sick, — only at times a little wrong 
about the head, and that he invariably relieved this by dieting. He 
then called my attention to the appropriateness and use of all things 
in nature. Trees are green, because green is good for the eyes. T 
assented to this, adding that the Lord had made cattle because beef- 
soup strengthened man, that jackasses were created for the purpose 
of serving as comparisons, and that man existed that he might eat 
beef-soup, and realize that he was no jackass. My companion was 
delighted to meet with one of sympathetic views, bis face glowed with 
a greater joy, and on parting from me he appeared to be sensibly 
moved. 

As long as he was with me Nature seemed benumbed, but when 
he departed the trees began again to speak, the sun-rays flashed, the 
meadow-flowers danced once more, and the blue heavens embraced the 
green earth. Yes — I know better. God hath created man that he 
may admire the beauty and the glory of the world. Every author, 
be he ever so great, desires that his work may be praised. And in 
the Bible, that great memoir of God, it is distinctly written that he 
hath made man for his own honour and praise. 

After long wandering, here and there, I came to the dwelling of 
the brother of my Clausthaler friend. Here I staid all night, and 
experienced the following beautiful poem : 

i. 

On yon rock the hut is standing, 

Of the ancient mountaineer. 
There the dark green fir trees rustle, 

And the moon is shining clear. 

In the hut there stands an arm-chair 

Which quaint carvings beautify ; 
He. who sits therein is happy, 

And that happy man am I. 



— 73 — 

On the footstool sits a maiden, 
On my lap her arms repose : — 

With her eyes like blue stars beaming, 
And her mouth a new-born rose. 

And the dear blue stars shine on me, 
Full as heaven is their gaze ; 

And her little lily finger 
Archly on the rose she lays. 

" Nay — thy mother cannot see us, 
For she spins the whole day long ; 

And thy father plays the cithern 
As he sings a good old song." 

And the maiden softly whispers, 
So that none around may hear : 

Many a solemn little secret 
Hath she murmured in my ear. 

Since I lost my aunt who loved me, 

Now we never more repair 
To the shooting-ground at Goslar, 

And it is so pleasant there ! 

And up here it is so lonely 

On the rocks where cold winds blow; 
And hi winter, we are ever 

Deeply buried in the snow. 

And I'm such a timid creature, 
And I'm frightened like a child; 

At the evil mountain spirits, 
Who by night are raging wild. 

At the thought the maid was silent, 
As if terror thrilled her breast ; 

And the small hands, white and dimpled 
To her sweet blue eyes she pressed. 

Loud, without, the fir trees rustle, 
Loud the spinning-wheel still rings : 

And the cithern sounds above them, 
While the father softly sings. 
7 



— 74 — 

" Dearest child : — no evil spirits 
Should have power to cause thee dread ; 

For good angels still are watching 
Night and day around thy head." 



Fir-Tree with his dark green fingers 
Taps upon the window low ; 

And the moon, a yellow listener, 
Casts within her sweetest glow. 

Father, mother, both are sleeping, 
Near at hand their rest they take ; 

But we two, in pleasant gossip, 
Keep each other long awake. 

''That thou prayest much too often, 
Seems unlikely I declare ; 

On thy lips there's a contraction 
Which was never born of prayer. 

Ah, that heartless, cold expression ! 

Terrifies me as I gaze ; 
Though a solemn sorrow darkens 

In thine eyes, their gentle rays. 

And I doubt if thou believest 
What is held for truth by most ; 

Hast thou faith in God the Father 
In the Son and Holy Ghost ? 

Ah, my darling ; when, an infant 
By my mother's knee I stood, 

[ believed in God the Father, 
He who ruleth great and good. 

He who made the world so lovely, 
Gave man beauty, gave him force \ 

A nd to sun and moon and planets, 
Pre-appointed each their course. 



— 75 — 

As I older grew, my darling, 

And my way in wisdom won ; 
I, in reason comprehended, 

And believe now in the Son. 

In the well-loved Son, who loving, 
Oped the gates of Love so wide ; 

And for thanks, — as is the custom,— 
By the world was crucified. 

Now, at man's estate arriving, 

Full experience I boast ; 
And with heart expanded, truly 

I believe in the Holy Ghost. 

Who hath worked the greatest wonders, 
Greater still he'll work again ; 

He hath broken tyrant's strong holds 
And he breaks the vassal's chain. 

Ancient deadly wounds he healeth, 
He renews man's ancient right ; 

All to hirn, born free and equal, 
Are as nobles in his sight. 

Clouds of evil flee before him, 
And those cobwebs of the brain, 

Which forbade us love and pleasure, 
Scowling grimly on our pain. 

And a thousand knights well weaponed 
Hath he chosen, and required 

To fulfil his holy bidding, 

All with noblest zeal inspired. 

Lo ! their precious swords are gleaming, 
And their banners wave in fight ! 

What ! thou fain would'st see, my darling, 
Such a proud and noble knight ? 

Well, then gaze upon me, dearest, 

I am of that lordly host. 
Kiss me ! I am an elected 

True knight of the Holy Ghost 1 



— 76 — 

Silently the moon goes hiding 

Down behind the dark green trees ; 

And the lamp which lights our chamber 
Flickers in the evening breeze. 

But the star-blue eyes are beaming 
Softly o'er the dimpled cheeks, 

And the purple rose is gleaming, 
While the gentle maiden speaks. 

Little people — fairy goblins — 
Steal away our meat and bread ; 

In the chest it lies at evening, 
In the morning it has fled. 

From our milk, the little people 
Steal the cream and all the best ; 

Then they leave the dish uncovered, 
And our cat drinks up the rest. 

And the cat's a witch, I'm certain, 
For by night when storms arise ; 

Oft she glides to yonder " Ghost-Kock," 
Where the fallen tower lies. 

There was once a splendid castle, 
Home of joy and weapon's bright ; 

Where there swept in stately torch dance, 
Lady, page, and armed knight. 

But a sorceress charmed the castle, 
With its lords and ladies fair ; 

Now it is a lonely ruin, 

And the owls are nestling there. 

But my aunt hath often told me, 
Could I speak the proper word, 

In the proper place up yonder, 
When the proper hour occurred. 



— 77 — 

Then the walls would change by magic 

To a castle gleaming bright ; 
And I'd see in stately dances, 

Dame and page and gallant knight. 

He who speaks the word of power 

Wins the castle for his own ; 
And the knights with drum and trumpet, 

Loud will hail him lord alone. 

Thus, sweet legendary pictures 

From the little rose-mouth bloom ; 

And the gentle eyes are shedding 
Star-blue lustre through the gloom. 

Round my hand the little maiden 
Winds her gold locks as she will, 

Gives a name to every finger, 
Kisses, — smiles, and then is still. 

All things in the silent chamber 

Seem at once familiar grown, 
As if e'en the chairs and clothes-press, 

Well, of old, to me were known. 

Now the clock talks kindly, gravely, 
And the cithern, as t'would seem, 

Of itself is faintly chiming, 
And I sit as in a dream. 

Now the proper hour is o'er us, 

Here's the place where't should be heard j 
Child— how thou would'st be astonished, 

Should I speak the magic word ! 

Tf I spoke that word, then fading 
Night would thrill in fearful strife ; 

Trees and streams would roar together 
As the castle woke to life. 

Ringing lutes and goblin ditties 
From the clefted rock would sound 

Like a mad and merry spring-tide 
Flowers grow forest-high around. 
1* 



— 78 — 

Flowers — startling, wondrous flowers, 
Leaves of vast and fabled form, 

Strangely perfumed, — wildly quivering, 
As if thrilled with passion's storm. 

Roses, wild as crimson flashes, 

O'er the busy tumult rise ; 
Giant lilies, white as crystal, 

Shoot like columns to the skies. 

Great as suns the stars above us 
Gaze adown with burning glow ; 

In the lilies, giant calyx 

All their floods of flashes flow. 

We ourselves, my little maiden, 
Would be changed more than all ; 

Torchlight gleams, o'er gold and satin 
Round us merrily would fall. 

Thou thyself would'st be the princess, 
And this hut thy castle high ; 

Ladies, lords, and graceful pages, 
Would be dancing, singing by. 

I, however, I have conquered 

Thee, and all things, with the word :- 
Serfs and castle : — lo ! with trumpet 

Loud they hail me as their lord ! 



The sun rose. Clouds flitted away like phantoms at the third 
brow of the cock. Again I wandered up hill and down dale, while 
over head swept the fair sun, ever lighting uf3 new scenes of beauty. 
The Spirit of the Mountain evidently favoured me, well knowing that 
a "poetical character" has it in his power to say many a fine thing 
of him, and on this morning he let me see his Hartz, as it is not, 
most assuredly, seen by every one. But the Hartz also saw me as I 
am seen by few, and there were as costly pearls on my eye-lashes, as * 
on the grass of the valley. The morning-dew of love wetted my - 
cheeks, the rustling pines understood me, their parting twigs waved 
up and down, as if, like mute mortals, they would express their joy 
with gestures of their hands, and from afar, I heard beautiful and 



— 79 — 

mysterious chimes, like the bell-tones of some long lost forest church. 
People say that these sounds are caused by the cattle-bells, which in 
the Hartz, ring with remarkable clearness and purity. 

It was noon, according to the position of the sun, as I chanced 
upon such a flock ; and its herd, a friendly, light-haired young fellow, 
told me that the great hill at whose base I stood, was the old world- 
renowned Brocken. For many leagues around, there is no house, and 
I was glad enough, when the young man invited me to share his meal. 
We sat down to a dejeuner dinatoire, consisting of bread and cheese. 
The sheep snatched up our crumbs, while pretty shining heifers jumped 
around, ringing their bells roguishly, and laughing at us with great 
merry eyes. We made a royal meal ; my host appearing to me alto- 
gether a king, and as he is the only monarch who has ever given me 
bread, I will sing him right royally. 

The shepherd is a monarch, 

A hillock is his throne, 
The sun above him shining, 

Is his heavy golden crown. 

Sheep at his feet are lying, 

Soft flatterers, crossed with red, 
The calves are " cavalieros," 

Who strut with haughty head. 

Court-players are the he-goats, 

And the wild-bird and the cow, 
With their piping and their herd-bell, 

Are the king's musicians now. 

They ring and sing so sweetly, 

And so sweetly chime around, 
The water-fall and fir-trees, 

While the monarch slumbers sound. 

And as he sleeps, his sheep-dog, 

As minister must reign ; 
His snarling and his barking, 

Re-echo o'er the plain. 

Dozing, the monarch murmurs 

" Such work was never seen 
As reigning — I were happier 

At home beside my Queen! 



— 80 — 

" My royal head when weary, * 
In my Queen's arms softly lies, 
And my endless broad dominion, 
In her deep and gentle eyes." 

"We took leave of each other in a friendly manner, and with a light 
heart I began to ascend the mountain. I was soon welcomed by a grove 
of stately firs, for whom I, in every respect, entertain the most reveren- 
tial regard. For these trees, of which I speak, have not found growing 
to be such an easy business, and during the days of their youth it 
fared hard with them. The mountain is here sprinkled with a great 
number of blocks of granite, and most of the trees are obliged either 
to twine their roots over the stones, or split them in two, that they 
may thus with trouble get at a little earth to nourish them. Here 
and there stones lie, on each other, forming as it were a gate, and 
over all grow the trees, their naked roots twining down over the wild 
portals, and first reaching the ground at its base, so that they appear 
to be growing in the air. And yet they have forced their way up to 
that startling height, and grown into one with the rocks, they stand 
more securely than their easy comrades, who are rooted in the tame 
forest soil of the level country. So it is in life with those great men 
who have strengthened and established themselves by resolutely sub- 
duing the obstacles which oppressed their youth. Squirrels climbed 
amid the fir-twigs, while beneath, yellow-brown deer were quietly 
grazing. I cannot comprehend, when I see such a noble animal, how 
educated and refined people can take pleasure in its chase or death. 
Such a creature was once more merciful than man, and suckled the 
longing " Schmerzeneeich" of the Holy Genofeva.* 

Most beautiful were the golden sun-rays shooting through the 
dark green of the firs. The roots of the trees formed a natural stair- 
way, and everywhere my feet encountered swelling beds of moss, for 
the stones are here covered foot-deep, as if with light-green velvet 
cushions. Everywhere a pleasant freshness and the dreamy murmur 
of streams. Here and there we see water rippling silver-clear amid 
the rocks, washing the bare roots and fibres of trees. Bend down to 
the current and listen, and you may hear at the same time the mys- 
terious history of the growth of the plants, and the quiet pulsations 



According to the Legend of Genofeva, (chap, v.) when the fair saint and her little son, 
Schmkrzekreich, (abounding in sorrows,) were starving in the wilderness, they were 
suckled by a doe.— [Note by Translator.^ 



— 81 — 

of the heart of the mountain. In many places, the water jets strongly 
up, amid rocks and roots, forming little cascades. It is pleasant to 
sit in such places. All murmurs and rustles so sweetly and strangely, 
the birds carol broken strains of love-longing, the trees whisper like 
a thousand girls, odd flowers peep up like a thousand maidens' eyes, 
stretching out to us their curious, broad, droll-pointed leaves, the sun- 
rays flash here and there in sport, the soft-souled herds are telling their 
green legends, all seems enchanted, and becomes more secret and 
confidential, an old, old dream is realized, the loved one appears, — 
alas that all so quickly vanishes ! 

The. higher we ascend, so much the shorter and more dwarf-like do 
the fir-trees become, shrinking up as it were within themselves, until 
finally only, whortle-berries, bilberries, and mountain herbs remain. 
It is also sensibly colder. Here, for the first time, the granite 
boulders, which are frequently of enormous size, become fully visible. 
These may well have been the play-balls"which evil spirits cast at each 
other on the Walpurgis night, when the witches came riding hither 
on brooms and pitch-forks, when the mad unhallowed revelry begins, 
as our believing nurses have told us, and as we may see it represented 
in the beautiful Faust-pictures of Master Retsch. Yes, a young poet 
who in journeying from Berlin to Gottingen, on the first evening in 
May, passed the Brocken, remarked how certain belles-lettered ladies 
held their aesthetic tea-circle in a rocky corner, how they comfortably 
read the Evening Journal, how they praised as an universal genius, 
their pet billy-goat, who bleating, hopped around their table, and how 
they passed a final judgment on all the manifestations of German 
literature. But when they at last fell upon " Ratcliff," and " Almau- 
sor," utterly denying to the author, aught like piety or Christianity, 
the hair of the youth rose on end, terror seized him — I spurred my 
steed and rode onwards ! 

In fact, when we ascend the upper half of the Brocken, no one 
can well help thinking of the attractive legends of the Blocksberg, 
and especially of the great mystical German national tragedy of Doc- 
tor Faust. It ever seemed to me that I could hear the cloven foot 
scrambling along behind, and that some one inhaled an atmosphere 
of humor. And I verily believe that " Mephisto" himself must 
breathe with difficulty when he climbs his favorite mountain, for it is 
a road which is to the last degree exhausting, and I was glad enough 
when I at last beheld the long desired Brocken-house. 

This house — as every one knows, from numerous pictures — consists 
of a single story, and was erected in the year 1800 by Count Stoll- 

9 



— 82 — 

berg "Wernigerode, for whose profit it is managed as a tavern. On 
account of the wind and cold in winter, its walls are incredibly thick, 
The roof is low. Prom its midst rises a tower-like observatory, and 
near the house lie two little out-buildings, one of which, in earlier 
times, served as shelter to the Brocken visitors. 

On entering the Brocken-house, I experienced a somewhat unusual 
and legend-like sensation. After a long solitary journey, amid rocks 
and pines, the traveller suddenly finds himself in a house amid the 
clouds. Far below lie cities, hills and forests, while above he en- 
counters a curiously blended circle of strangers, by whom he is 
received as is usual in such assemblies, almost like an expected 
companion — half inquisitively and half indifferently. I found the 
house full of guests, and, as becomes a wise man, I first reflected 
on the night, and the discomfort of sleeping on straw. My part 
was at once determined on. With the voice of one dying I 
called for tea, and the Brocken landlord was reasonable enough 
to perceive that the sick gentleman must be provided with a decent 
bed. This he gave me, in a narrow room, where a young merchant 
—a long emetic in a brown overcoat — had already established 
himself. 

In the public room I found a full tide of bustle and animation. 
There were students from different Universities. Some of the newly 
arrived were taking refreshments. Others, preparing for departure, 
buckled on their knapsacks, wrote their names in the album, and 
received bouquets from the housemaid. There was jesting, singing, 
springing, trilling, some questioning, some answering, fine weather, 
foot path, prosit! — luck be with you! Adieu! Some of those leav- 
ing were also partly drunk, and these derived a two-fold pleasure from 
the beautiful scenery, for a tipsy man sees double. 

After recruiting myself, I ascended the observatory, and there 
found a little gentleman, with two ladies, one of whom was young 
and the other elderly. The young lady was very beautiful. A 
superb figure, flowing locks, surmounted by a helm-like black satin 
chapemi, amid whose white plumes the wind played; fine limbs, so 
closely enwrapped by a black silk mantle that their exquisite form 
was made manifest, and great free eyes, calmly looking down into the 
great free world. 

When as yet a boy I thought of naught save tales of magic and 
wonder, and every fair lady who had ostrich feathers on her head I 
regarded as an Elfin Queen. If I observed that the train of her 



— 83 — 

dress was wet, I believed at once that she must be a water fairy.'* 
Now, I know better, having learned from Natural History that those 
symbolical feathers are found on the most stupid of birds, and that 
the skirt of a lady's dress, may be wetted in a very natural way. 
But if I had, with those boyish eyes, seen the aforesaid young lady, 
in the aforesaid position on the Brocken, I would most assuredly 
have thought " That is the fairy of the mountain and she has just 
uttered the charm which has caused all down there to appear so 
wonderful." Yes, at the first glance from the Brocken, everything 
appears in a high degree marvellous, — new impressions throng in on 
every side, and these, varied and often contradictory, unite in our 
soul to an overpowering and confusing sensation. If we suceeed in 
grasping the idea of this sensation, we shall comprehend the character 
of the mountain. This character is entirely German as regards not 
only its advantages, but also its defects. The Brocken is a German. 
With German thoroughness he points out to us, — sharply and accu- 
rately defined as in a panorama, — the hundreds of cities, towns and 
villages which are principally situated to the north, and all the 
mountains, forests, rivers and plains which lie infinitely far around. 
But for this very cause everything appears like an accurately designed 
and perfectly coloured map, and nowhere is the eye gratified by really 
beautiful landscapes, — just as we German compilers, owing to the 
honourable exactness with which we attempt to give all and every- 
thing, never appear to think of giving integral parts in a beautiful 
manner. The mountain in consequence has a certain calm-German, 
intelligent, tolerant character, simply because he can see things so 
distant, yet so distinctly. And when such a mountain opens his 
giant eyes, it may be that he sees somewhat more than we dwarfs, 
who with our weak eyes climb over him. Many, indeed, assert that 
the Blocksberg is very Philistine-like, and Claudius once sang "The 
Blocksberg is the lengthy Sir Philistine." But that was an error. 
On account of his bald head, which he occasionally covers with a 
cloud cap, the Blocksberg has indeed something of a Philistine-like 
aspect,f but this with him, as with many other great Germans, is the 



* It is an accepted tradition in Fairy mythology that Undines, Water Nixies and other 
aqueous spirits, however they may disguise themselves, can always he detected by the 
fact that a portion of their dress invariably appears to be wet. — [Note by Translator.'] 

f Philistrose, — " Philistine-like," i. e. Old fogyish, vulgar, non-student like, citizen-ish, 
gnobbish, bourgeois, slow. The term is generally applied by wild students to those " out* 
aiders" who lead a settled down life in the world. " A Philistine," says Aendt, is a lazy 



— 84 — 

result of pure irony. For it is notorious that he has his wild-student 
and fantastic times, as for instance, on the first night of May. Then 
he casts his cloud-cap uproariously and merrily on high, and 
becomes like the rest of us, real German romantic mad. 

I soon sought to entrap the beauty into a conversation, for we 
only begin to fully enjoy the beauties of nature when we talk about 
them on the spot. She was not spirituelle, but attentively intelligent. 
Both were perfect models of gentility. I do not mean that common- 
place, stiff, negative respectability, which knows exactly what must not 
be done or said, but that rarer, independent, positive gentility, which 
inspires an accurate knowledge of what we may venture on, and which 
amid all our ease and abandon inspires the utmost social confidence 
I developed to my own amazement much geographical knowledge, 
detailed to the curious beauty the names of all the towns which 
lay before us, and sought them out for her om the map, which with 
all the solemnity of a teacher I had spread out on the stone table 
which stands in the Centre of the tower. I could not find many of 
the towns, possibly because I sought them more with my fingers than 
with my eyes, which latter were scanning the face of the fair lady, and 
discovering in it fairer regions than those of " Schierke" and " Elend."* 
This countenance was one of those which never excite, and seldom 
enrapture, but which always please. I love such faces, for they smile 
my evilly agitated heart to rest. 

I could not divine the relation in which the little gentleman stood 
to the ladies whom he accompanied. He was a spare and remarkable 
figure. A head sprinkled with gray hair, winch fell over his low 
forehead down to his dragon-fly eyes, and a round, broad nose which 
projected boldly forwards, while his mouth and chin seemed 
retreating in terror back to his ears. His face looked as if formed 
of the soft yellowish clay with which sculptors mould their first 
models, and when the thin lips pinched together, thousands of semi- 
circular and faint wrinkles appeared on his cheeks. The little man 
never spoke a word, only at times when the elder lady whispered 



much-speaking, more-asking, nothing-daring man; such a one who makes the small great 
and the great small, Because in the great he feels his littleness and insignificance. Great 
passions, great enjoyments, great dangers, great virtues, — all these the Philistine styles 
nonsense and frenzy." — [Note by Translator.] 

* Schierke (Schurke), " rascal," and Elend or "misery," are the names of two places 
near the Brocken. 



— 85 — 

something' friendly in his ear, he smiled like a lap dog which has 
taken cold. 

The elder lady was the mother of the younger, and she too was 
gifted with an air of extreme respectability and refinement. Her 
eyes betrayed a sickly, dreamy depth of thought, and about her mouth 
there was an expression of confirmed piety, yet withal, it seemed to 
me that she had once been very beautiful, and often smiled, and 
taken and given many a kiss. Her countenance resembled a codex 
palimpsestus, in which, from beneath the recent black monkish 
writing of some text of a Church Father, there peeped out the half 
obliterated verse of an old Greek love-poet. Both ladies had been 
that year with their companion, in Italy, and told me many things of 
the beauties of Home, Florence, and Venice. The mother had much 
to say of the pictures of Raphael in St. Peter's ; the daughter spoke 
more of the opera in La Fenice. 

While we conversed, the sun sank lower and lower, the air grew 
colder, twilight stole over us, and the tower platform was filled with 
students, travelling mechanics, and a few honest citizens with their 
spouses and daughters, all of whom were desirous of witnessing the 
sun-set. That is truly a sublime spectacle which elevates the soul 
to prayer. For a full quarter of an hour all stood in solemn silence, 
gazing on the beautiful fire-ball as it sank in the west ; faces were 
rosy in the evening red ; hands were involuntarily folded ; it seemed 
as if we, a silent congregation, stood in the nave of a giant church, 
that the priest raised the body of the Lord, and that Palestrina's 
everlasting choral song poured forth from the organ. 

As I stood thus lost in piety, I heard some one near me exclaim, 
K Ah ! how beautiful Nature is, as a general thing !" These words 
came from the full heart of my room-mate, the young shopman. 
This brought me back to my week day state of mind, and I found 
myself in tune to say a few neat things to the ladies, about the sun- 
set, and to accompany them, as calmly as if nothing had happened, 
to their room. They permitted me to converse an hour longer with 
them. Our conversation, like the earth's course, was about the sun. 
The mother declared-, that the sun as it sunk in the snowy clouds, seemed 
like a red glowing rose, which the gallant heaven had thrown upon 
the white and spreading bridal-veil of his loved earth. The daughter 
smiled, and thought that a frequent observation of such phenomena 
weakened their impression. The mother corrected this error by a 
quotation from Goethe's Letters of Travel, and asked me if had I read 
I Werther." I believe that we also spoke of Angora cats, Etruscan 



vases, Turkish shawls, maccaroni and Lord Byrox. from whose 
poems, the elder lady, while daintily lisping and sighing, recited 
several snn-set quotations. To the younger lady, who did not under- 
stand English, and who wished to become familiar with those poems, 
I recommended the translation of my fair and gifted countrywoman, 
the Baroness Elise von Hohenhausen. On this occasion, as is my 
custom when talking with young ladies, I did not neglect to speak 
of Byrox's impiety, heartlessness, cheerlessness, and heaven knows 
what beside. 

After this business I took a walk on the Brocken, for there it is 
never quite dark. The mist was not heavy, and I could see the out- 
lines of the two hills known as the Witch's Altar and the Devil's 
Pulpit. I fired my pistol, but there was no echo. But suddenly I 
heard familiar voices, and found myself embraced and kissed. The 
new comers were fellow-students, from my omi part of Germany, and 
had left Gottingen four days later than I. Great was their astonish- 
ment at finding me alone on the Blocksberg. Then came a ifood 
tide of narrative, of astonishment, and of appointment making — of 
laughing and of recollection — and in the spirit we found ourselves 
again in our learned Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an 
extent that bears are " bound by many ties" in the taverns, and sables 
wish the hunter good evening.* 

In the great room we had supper. There was a long table, with 
two rows of hungry students. At first we had only the usual subject 
of University conversation — duels, duels, and once again duels. The 
company consisted principally of Halle students, and Halle formed 
in consequence the nucleus of their discourse. The window panes of 
Court-Counsellor Schutz were exegetically lighted up. Then it was 
mentioned that the King of Cyprus's last levee had been very bril- 
liant, that the monarch had appointed a natural son, that he had 
married — over the left — a princess of the house of Lichtenstein, that 



* According to that dignified and erudite work, the Burschikoses Worterbuch, or Student- 
Slang Dictionary, " to hind a hear," signifies to contract a deht. The term is most fre- 
quently applied to tavern scores. In "the Landlord's Twelve Commandments," a sheet 
frequently pasted up in German beer-houses, T hare observed — " Thou shalt not bind any 
bears in this my house." The definition of a sable (Zobel), as given in the Dictionary above 
cited, are : 1, a finely furred animal: 2, a young lady anxious to please; 3, a " broom,'' 
(i. e. housemaid, or female in general); i : a lady of pleasure; 5, a wench; 6, a nymph 
of the pave; 7, a "buckle," &c, &c. The sable hunt is synonymous with the Besenjagd 
or " broom chase."' I have however heard it asserted in Heidelberg, that the term sabU 
was strictly applicable only to ladies' maids. 



— 87 — 

the State-mistress had been forced to resign, and that the entire min- 
istry, greatly moved, had wept according to rule. I need hardly 
explain that this all referred to certain beer-dignitaries in Halle. 
Then the two Chinese, who two years before had been exhibited in 
Berlin, and who were now appointed professors of Chinese aesthetics 
in Halle, were discussed. Some one supposed a case in which a live 
German might be exhibited for money in China. Placards would be 
pasted up, in which the Mandarins Tsching-Tschang-Tschung and 
Hi-Ha-Ho certified that the man was a genuine Teuton, including a 
list of his accomplishments, which consisted principally of philoso- 
phizing, smoking, and endless patience. As a finale, visitors might 
be prohibited from bringing any dogs with them at twelve o'clock 
(the hour for feeding the captive), as these animals would be sure to 
snap from the poor German all his tit-bits. 

A young Burschenschafter, who had recently passed his period of 
purification in Berlin, spoke much, but very partially of this city. 
He had been constant in his attendance on Wisotzki and the Theatre 
but judged falsely of both. " For youth is ever ready with a word 
&c." He spoke of wardrobe expenditures, theatrical scandal, and 
similar matters. The youth knew not that in Berlin where outside 
show exerts the greatest influence, (as is abundantly evidenced by the 
commonness of the phrase " so people do,") this apparent life must 
first of all, flourish on the stage, and consequently that the especial 
care of the Direction must be for "the colour of the beard with which 
a part is played," and for the truthfulness of the dresses, which are 
designed by sworn historians, and sewed by scientifically instructed 
tailors. And this is indispensable. For if Maria Stuart, wore an 
apron belonging to the tinfe of Queen Anne, the Banker, Christian 
Gumpel would, with justice complain that the anachronism destroyed 
the illusion, and if Lord Burleigh in a moment of forgetfulness 
should don the hose of Henry the Fourth, then Madam, the war- 
counsellor von Steinzopf's wife, nee Lilienthau, would not get the 
error out of her head for the whole evening. And this delusive care 
on the part of the general direction extends itself not only to aprons 
and pantaloons, but also to the within enclosed persons. So in future. 
Othello will be played by a real Moor, for whom professor Lichten- 
stein has already written to Africa, the misanthropy and remorse of 
Eulalia are to be sustained by a lady who has really wandered from 
the paths of virtue, Peter will be played by a real blockhead, and the 
Stranger by a genuine mysterious wittol — for which last three cha- 
racters it will not be necessary to send to Africa. But little as this 



young- man had comprehended the relations of the Berlin drama, stili 
less was he aware that the Spontini Jannissary opera with its kettle- 
drums, elephants, trumpets, and gongs is a heroic means of inspiring 
with valour our sleeping race, — a means once shrewdly recommended 
by Plato and Cicero. Least of all did the youth comprehend the diplo- 
matic inner-meaning of the ballet. It was with great trouble that I 
finally made him understand that there was really more political science 
in Hoguet's feet than in Buokholtz's head, that all his tours de danse 
signified diplomatic negotiations, and that his every movement hinted 
at state matters, as for instance, when he bent forward anxiously, 
widely grasping out with his hands, he meant our Cabinet, that a 
hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting the spot, alluded to 
the alliance of Deputies, that he was thinking of the lesser princes 
when he tripped around with his legs tied, that he described the Euro- 
pean balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a 
drunken man, that he hinted at. a Congress when he twisted his bended 
arms together like a skein, and finally that he sets forth our altogether 
too great friend in the East, when very gradually unfolding himself, 
he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated position, and 
then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying leaps. The 
scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw how it 
was that dancers are better paid than great poets, why the ballet 
forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of conversation, 
and why a beautiful danseuse is so frequently privately supported by 
a minister, who beyond doubt labors night and day that she may 
obtain a correct idea of his ' little system." By Apis ! how great is 
the number of the exoteric, and how small the array of the esoteric 
frequenters of the theatre ! There sit the stupid audience, gaping 
and admiring leaps and attitudes, studying anatomy in the positions 
of Lemiere and applauding the entre-chats of Rohnisch, prattling of 
" grace/' " harmony," and " limbs," — no one remarking, meanwhile, 
that he has before him in choregraphie ciphers, the destiny of the 
German Father-land. 

While such observations flitted hither and thither, we did not lose 
sight of the practical, and the great dishes which were honourably 
piled up with meat, potatoes, et cetera, were industriously disposed 
of. The food, however, was of an indifferent quality. This I care- 
lessly mentioned to my next neighbour at table, who, however, with 
an accent in which I recognized the Swiss, very impolitely replied, that 
Germans knew as little of true content, as of true liberty. I shrugged 
my shoulders, remarking, that all the world over, the humblest vassals 



— 89 — 

of princes, as well as pastry cooks and confectioners, were Swiss, and 
known as a class by that name. I also took the liberty of stating, 
that Ihe Swiss heroes of liberty of the present day, reminded me of 
those tame hares, which we see on market days in public places, 
where they fire off pistols to the great amazement of peasants and 
children — yet remain hares as before. 

The Son of the Alps had really meant nothing wicked, " he was," 
as Cervantes says, " a plump man, and consequently a good man." 
But my neighbour on the other, side, a Greifswalder, was deeply 
touched by the assertion of the Swiss. Energetically did he assert 
that German ability and simplicity were not as yet extinguished, 
struck in a threatening manner on his breast, and gulped down a 
tremendous flagon of white-beer. The Swiss said, " Nu ! Nu !" But 
the more appeasingly and apologetically he said this, so much the 
faster did the Greifswalder get on with his riot. He was a man of 
those days, when hair-cutters came near dying of starvation. He 
wore long locks, a knightly cap, a black old German coat, a dirty 
shirt, which, at the same time, did duty as a waistcoat, and beneath 
it a medallion, with a tassel of the hair of BlUcher's grey horse. His 
appearance was that of a full grown fool. I am always ready for 
something lively at supper, and consequently, held with him a 
patriotic strife. He was of the opinion that Germany should be 
divided into thirty-three districts. I asserted on the contrary, that 
there should be forty-eight, because it would then be possible to write 
a more systematic guide-book for Germany, and because it is essential 
that life should be blended with science. My Griefswald friend was 
also a German bard, and, as he informed me in confidence, was occu- 
pied with a national heroic poem, in honour of Herrman and the 
Herrman battle. Many an advantageous hint did I give him on this 
subject. I suggested to him that the morasses and crooked paths 
of the Teutobcrgian forest, might be very onomatopoically indicated 
by means of watery and ragged verse, and that it would be merely a 
patriotic liberty, should the Romans in his poem, chatter the wildest 
nonsense. I hope that this bit of art will succeed in his works, as in 
those of other Berlin poets, even to the minutest particular. 

The company around the table gradually became better acquainted, 
and much noisier. Wine banished beer, punch bowls steamed, and 
drinking, smolliren* and singing, were the order of the night. The 



* Contracted from the Latin sibi molire amicum. Schmollirm, signifies to gain a friend, 
to drink brotherhood with him, to give and take the " brother-kiss," and finally, to Duzen, 

8* 



— 9U — 

old " Landsfather" and the beautiful songs of W. Muller, Ruckert, 
Uhland and others, rang around, with the exquisite airs of Meth- 
fessel. Best of all, sounded our own Arxdt's German words, 
" The Lord who bade iron grow, wished for no slaves." And out of 
doors it roared as if the old mountain sang with us, and a few reeling 
friends even asserted, that he merrily shook his bald head, which 
caused the great unsteadiness of our floor. The bottles became 
emptier and the heads of the company fuller. One bellowed like an 
ox, a second piped, a third declaimed from " The Crime," a fourth 
spoke Latin,* a fifth preached temperance, and a sixth, assuming the 
chair learnedly, lectured as follows : " Gentlemen ! The world is a 
round cylinder, upon which human beings as individual pins, are 
scattered apparently at random. But the cylinder revolves, the pins 
knock together and give out tones, some very frequently, and others 
but seldom ; all of which causes a remarkably complicated sound, 
which is generally known as Universal History. We will, in conse- 
quence, speak first of music, then of the world, and finally of history ; 
which latter, we divide into positive and Spanish flies — " And so, 
sense and nonsense, went rattling on. 

A jolly Meehlenburger, who held his nose to his punch-glass, and 
smiling with happiness snuffed up the perfume, remarked that it 
caused in him a sensation as if he were standing again before the 
refreshment table in the Schwerin Theatre ! Another held his wine 
glass like a lorgnette before his eye, and appeared to be carefully 
studying the company, while the red wine trickled down over his cheek 
into his projecting mouth. The Greifswalder, suddenly inspired, cast 
himself upon my breast, and shouted wildly, " Oh, that thou couldst 
understand me. for I am a lover, a happy lover; for I am loved again, 
and G — d d — n me, she's an educated girl, for she has a full bosom, 
wears a white gown, and plays the piano !" But the Swiss wept, and 
tenderly kissed my hand, and ever whimpered, " Oh, Molly dear ! oh, 
Molly dear !" 

or call the friend Du or thou, equivalent to the French tutoyer. Tie act of schmoUiren is 
termed Schmollis, from the Latin, sis mihi mollis amicus. "Be my good friend !" The 
sckmoUis in Universities, is accompanied by a variety of ceremonies more or less imposing-. 
The Crown-Scbmollis, sung at a Commers or general meeting, involves a vast amount of 
singing. &c. To refuse a schmollis is equivalent to a challenge. It is generally asserted, 
that to break the schmollis. or to call the friend in a mcrment of forgetfulness, c: you," 
instead of" thou," calls for the forfeit of a bottle of vrine, ":mt I have never observed thai 
this rule was enforced against any, save foxes or freshmen, and the like. — [Note by Trans 
latm-.] 

* Wag tipsy. Wein spricht Latein — " Wine speaks Latin," says an old proverb, fullj 
Illustrated by Rabelais.— [Note by Translator.'} 



— 91 — 

During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and 
glasses to fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful, and pale 
as statues, one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The faint rosy 
hue which the wine spread over their cheeks was scarcely visible. 
They gazed on each other with infinite affection, as if the one could 
read in the eyes of the other, and in those eyes there was a light as 
though drops of light had fallen therein from the cup of burning love, 
which an angel on high bears from one star to the other. They con- 
versed softly with earnest, trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, 
through all of which ran a tone of strange sorrow. " Lora is also 
dead I" said one, and sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle 
who had loved a student, and who when the latter left Halle, spoke 
no more to any one, ate but little, wept day and night, gazing ever 
on the canary-bird which her lover had given her." The bird died, 
and Loea did not long survive it," was the conclusion, and both the 
youths sighed as though their hearts would break. Finally, the 
other said, "My soul is sorrowful — come forth with me into the 
dark night ! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds and the moon- 
rays. Partake of my sorrows ! I love thee, thy words are musical, 
like the rustling of reeds and the flow of rivulets, they reecho in my 
breast, but my soul is sorrowful !" 

Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the 
neck of the other, and thus left the noisy room. I followed, and saw 
them enter a dark chamber, where the one by mistake, instead of the 
window, threw open the door of a large wardrobe, and that both, 
standing before it with outstretched arms, expressing poetic rapture, 
spoke alternately. " Ye breezes of darkening night," cried the first, 
"how ye cool and revive my cheeks ! How sweetly ye play amid my 
fluttering locks ! I stand on the cloudy peak of the mountain, far 
below me lie the sleeping cities of men, and blue waters gleam. List ! 
far below in the valley rustle the fir-trees ! Far above yonder hills 
sweep in misty forms the spirits of my fathers. Oh that I could 
hunt with ye, on your cloud-steeds, through the stormy night, over 
the rolling sea, upwards to the stars ! Alas ! I am laden with griei 
and my soul is sad !" Meanwhile, the other had also stretched out 
his arms towards the wardrobe, while tears fell from his eyes as he 
cried, to a broad pair of yellow pantaloons which he mistook for the 
moon. " Fair art thou, Daughter of Heaven ! Lovely and blessed 
is the calm of thy countenance. The stars follow thy blue path in 
the east ! At thy glance the clouds rejoice, and their dark brows 
gleam with light. Who is like unto thee in Heaven, thou the Night* 



— 92 — 

born? The stars are ashamed before thee, and turn away their 
green-sparkling eyes. Whither — ah, whither — when morning pales 
thy face dost thou flee from thy path ? Hast thou, like me, thy hall ? 
Dwellest thou amid shadows of humility ? Have thy sisters fallen 
from Heaven ? Are they who joyfully rolled with thee through the 
night now no more ? Yea, they fell adown oh, lovely light, and thou 
hidest thyself to bewail them ! Yet the night must at some time 
come when thou too must pass away, and leave thy blue path above 
in Heaven. Then the stars, who were once lovely in thy presence, 
will raise their green heads and rejoice. Now, thou art clothed in 
thy starry splendor, and gazest adown from the gate of Heaven. 
Tear aside the clouds, oh ye winds, that the night-born may shine 
ftfrth and the bushy hills gleam, and that the foaming waves of the 
sea may roll in light !" 

A well known and not remarkably thin friend, who had drunk more 
than he had eaten, though he had already at supper devoured a piece 
of beef which would have dined six lieutenants of the guard and one 
innocent child, here came rushing into the room in a very jovial man- 
ner, that is to say, a la swine, shoved the two elegiac friends one over 
the other into the wardrobe, stormed through the house-door, and 
began to roar around outside, as if raising the devil in earnest. The 
noise in the hall grew wilder and louder — the two moaning and weep- 
ing friends lay, as they thought, crushed at the foot of the mountain ; 
from their throats ran noble red wine, and the one said to the other, 
" Farewell ! I feel that I bleed. Why dost thou waken me, oh breath 
of Spring ? Thou caressest me, and say'st, ' I bedew thee with drops 
from heaven. But the time of my withering is at hand — at hand the 
storm which will break away my leaves. To-morrow the Wanderer 
will come — he who saw me in my beauty — his eyes will glance, as of 
yore, around the field — in vain — " But over all roared the well 
known basso voice without, blasphemously complaining, amid oaths 
and whoops, that not a single lantern had been lighted along the 
entire Weender street, and that one could not even see whose window 
panes he had smashed. 

I can bear a tolerable quantity — modesty forbids me to say how 
many bottles — and I consequently retired to my chamber in tolerably 
good condition. The young merchant already lay in bed, enveloped 
in his chalk-white night-cap, and yellow Welsh flannel." He was not 
asleep, and sought to enter into conversation with me. He was a 
Frankfort-on-Mainer, and consequently spoke at once of the Jews, 



— 93 — 

declared that they had lost all feeling for the beautiful and noble, and 
that they sold English goods twenty-five per cent, under manufac- 
turers' prices. A fancy to humbug him came over me, and I told 
him that I was a somnambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon 
should I unwittingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he 
confessed the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink 
through the whole night, especially since the idea had entered his 
head that I, while in a somnambulistic crisis, might shoot him with 
the pistol which lay near my bed. But in truth I fared no better 
myself, for I slept very little. Dreary and terrifying fancies swept 
through my brain. A piano-forte extract from Dante's Hell. Finally 
I dreamed that I saw a law opera, called the Falcidia* with libretto 
on the right of inheritance by G-ans, and music by Spontini. A crazy 
dream ! I saw the Roman Forum splendidly illuminated. In it, 
Servius Asinius Goschenus sitting as praetor on his chair, and throw- 
ing wide his toga in stately folds, burst out into raging recitative ; 
Marcus Tullius Elversus, manifesting as prima donna legataria all 
the exquisite feminineness of his nature, sang the love-melting ora- 
vura of Quicunque civis Romanus ; Referees, rouged red as sealing- 
wax, bellowed in chorus as minors ; private tutors^ dressed as genii, 
in flesh-colored stockinets, danced an anti-Justinian ballet, crowning 
with flowers the " Twelve Tables," while, amid thunder and lightning, 
rose from the ground the abused ghost of Roman Legislation, accom- 
panied by trumpets, gongs, fiery rain, cum, omni causa. 

From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the Brocken, 
when he awoke me to see the sunrise. Above, on the tower, I found 
several already waiting, who rubbed their freezing hands ; others, 
with sleep still in their eyes, stumbled around, until finally the whole 
silent congregation of the previous evening was re-assembled, and 
we saw how, above the horizon, there rose a little carmine-red ball, 
spreading a dim, wintry illumination. Far around, amid the mists, 
rose the mountains, as if swimming in a white rolling sea, only their 
summits being visible, so that we could imagine ourselves standing on 
a little hill in the midst of an inundated plain, in which here and 
there rose dry clods of earth. To retain that which I saw and felt, I 
sketched the following poem : 



* The " Falcidian law" was so called from its proposer, Falcidius. According to it, the 
testator was obliged to leave at least the fourth part of his fortune to the person whona 
he named his heir. Vide Pandects of Justinian. 



— 94 — 

In the east 'tis ever brighter, 

Though the sun gleams cloudily ; 
Far and wide the mountain summits 

Swim above the misty sea. 

Had I seven-mile boots for travel, 

Like the fleeting winds I'd rove, 
Over valley, rock and river, 

To the home of her I love. 

From the bed where now she's sleeping 

Soft, the curtain I would slip ; 
Softly kiss her child-like forehead, 

Soft the ruby of her lip. 

And yet softer would I whisper 
In the little snow-white ear : 
" Think in dreams that I still love thee, 
Think in dreams I'm ever dear." 

Meanwhile my desire for breakfast greatly increased, and after paying 
a few attentions to my ladies, I hastened down to drink coffee in the 
warm public-room. It was full time, for all within me was as sober 
and as sombre as in the St. Stephen's church of Goslar. But with 
the Arabian beverage, the warm Orient thrilled through my limbs. 
Eastern roses breathed forth their perfumes, the students were 
changed to camels,* the Brocken-house-maids with their Congreve- 
rocket-glances became houris, the Philistine-roses, minarets, &c. &c. 

But the book which lay near me, though full of nonsense, was not 
the Koran. It was the so-called Brocken-book, in which all tra- 
vellers who ascend the mountain write their names, — many inscrib- 
ing their thoughts or in default thereof, their "feelings." Many 
even express themselves in verse. In this book, one may observe 
the horrors which result when the great Philistine Pegasus at conve-. 
nient opportunities such as this on the Brocken, becomes poetic. 



* A " camel" in German student dialect, signifies according to the erudite "Dr. Vollmann 
(Burschik, Worte?'b, p. 100.) 1st. A student not in any regular club. 2d. A savage. 3d 
A finch. 4th. A badger. 5th. A stag. 6th. A hare. 7th. * * * * 8th. An " outsider." 
9th. A Jew. 10th. A nigger. 11th. A Bedouin. 12th. One who neither drinks, smokes, 
fights duels, cares for girls, nor renowns it. To renown it, (rmnomiren) is equivalent to 
the American phrase " spreads himself." The sum total of Dr. Vollmann's definitions 
amount according to German student ideas, to what an Englishman would call a " muff," 
or a " slow coach." — {Note by Translator.] 



_ 95* — 

The palace of the Prince of Paphlagonia never contained such absurdi- 
ties and insipidities as are to be found in this book. Those who 
shine in it, with especial splendor, are Messieurs the excise-collectors, 
with their mouldy " high-inspirations ;" counter-jumpers, with their 
pathetic outgushings of the souls ; old German dilletanti with their 
Turner-union-phrases,* and Berlin schoolmasters with their unsuc- 
cessful efforts at enthusiasm. Mr. Snobbs will also for once show 
himself as author. In one page, the majestic splendor of the 
sun is described, — in another, complaints occur of bad weather, of 
disappointed hopes, and of the clouds which obstruct the view. 
" Went up wet without, and came down 'wet within,' "f is a standing 
joke, repeated in the book hundreds of times. 

The whole volume smells of beer, tobacco, and cheese ; — we might 
fancy it one of Clauren's romances. 

While I drank the coffee aforesaid, and turned over the Brocken- 
book, the Swiss entered, his cheeks deeply glowing, and described with 
enthusiasm the sublime view, which he had just enjoyed in the tower 
above, as the pure calm light of the Sun, that symbol of Truth, fought 
with the night-mists, and that it appeared like a battle of spirits, in 
which raging giants brandished their long swords, where harnessed 
knights on leaping steeds chased each other, and war-chariots, flut- 
tering banners, and extravagant monster forms sank in the wildest 
confusion, till all finally entwined in the maddest contortions, melted 
into* dimness and vanished, leaving no trace. This demagogical 
natural phenomenon, I had neglected, and, should the curious affair be 
ever made the subject of investigation, I am ready to declare on oath, 
that all I know of the matter is the flavour of the good brown coffee I 
was then tasting. 

Alas ! this was the guilty cause of my neglecting my fair lady, and 
now, with mother and friend, she stood before the door, about to step 
into her carriage. I had scarcely time to hurry to her, and assure 
her that it was cold. She seemed piqued at my not coming sooner, 
but I soon drove the clouds from her fair brow, by presenting to her 
a beautiful flower, which I had plucked the day before, at the risk of 
breaking my neck, from a steep precipice. The mother inquired the 
name of the flower, as if it seemed to her not altogether correct that 



*The Turner-unions are associations organized for the purpose of Gymnastic exercise. 
They may also be regarded as revolutionary political clubs. 

f Benebelt Tierauf gekommen und benebdt MnunUr gegangen. " Came up in a cloud and 
went down cloudy. The word " cloudy" occurs as an English synonyme for intoxication, 
in a list of such terms which I have seen in print.— [Note by Translator.] 



— 96 — 

her daughter should place a strange, unknown flower before her 
bosom — for this was in fact the enviable position which the flower 
attained, and of which it could never have dreamed the day before 
when on its lonely height. The silent friend here opened his mouth, 
and after counting the stamina of the flower, dryly remarked that it 
belonged to the eighth class. 

It vexes me every time, when I remember that even the dear 
flowers which God hath made, have been, like us, divided into castes, 
and like us, are distinguished by those external names which indicate 
descent and family. If there must be such divisions, it were better 
to adopt those suggested by Theophrastus, who wished that flowers 
might be divided according to souls — that is, their perfumes. As foi 
myself, I have my own system of Natural Science, according to 
which, all things are divided into those which may — or may not be — 
eaten ! 

The secret and mysterious nature of flowers, was, however, any- 
thing but a secret to the elder lady, and she involuntarily remarked, 
that she felt happy in her very soul, when she saw flowers growing in 
the garden or in a room, while a faint, dreamy sense of pain, invaria- 
bly affected her on beholding a beautiful flower with broken stalk — 
that it was really a dead body, and that the delicate pale head of such 
a flower-corpse hung down like that of a dead infant. The lady here 
became alarmed at the sorrowful impression which her remark 
caused, and I flew to the rescue with a few Yoltairean verses. How 
quickly two or three French words bring us back into the conven- 
tional concert-pitch of conversation. We laughed, hands were 
kissed, gracious smiles beamed, the horses neighed, and the wagon 
jolted heavily and slowly adown the hill. 

And now the students prepared to depart. Knapsacks were 
buckled, the bills, which were moderate beyond all expectation, were 
settled, the too susceptible house-maids, upon whose pretty coun- 
tenances the traces of successful amours were plainly visible, brought, 
as is their custom, their Brocken-bouquets, and helped some to adjust 
their caps ; for all of which they were duly rewarded with either 
coppers or kisses. Thus we all went " down hill," albeit one party, 
among whom were the Swiss and Griefswalder, took the road towards 
Schierke, and the other of about twenty men, among whom were my 
" land's people" and I ; led by a guide, went through the so-called 
" Snow Holes," down to Ilsenburg. 

Such a head-over-heels, break-neck piece of business ! Haiie 
students travel quicker than the Austrian militia. Ere I knew 



ft 



— 97 — 

where I was, the bald summit of the mountain with groups of stones 
strewed over it, was behind us, and we went through the fir-wood 
which I had seen the day before. The sun poured down a cheerful 
light on the merry Burschen as they merrily pressed onward through 
the wood, disappearing here, coming to light again there, running in 
marshy places, across on shaking trunks of trees, climbing over 
shelving steeps by grasping the projecting tree-roots, while they 
trilled all the time in the merriest manner. 

The lower we descended, the more delightfully did subterranean 
waters ripple around us ; only here and there they peeped out amid 
rocks and bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet 
come to light, until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. 
Then followed the usual show — the bravest one makes a beginning, and 
then the great multitude of hesitaters, suddenly inspired with courage, 
rush forth to join the first. A multitude of springs now leaped in 
haste from their ambush, united with the leader, and finally formed 
quite an important brook, which with its innumerable water-falls and 
beautiful windings ripples adown the valley. This is now the Use — 
the sweet, pleasant Use. She flows through the blest Ilse-vale, on 
whose sides the mountains gradually rise higher and higher, being 
clad even to their base with beech-trees, oaks, and the usual shrubs, 
the firs and other needle-covered evergeens having disappeared. 
For that variety of trees prevails upon the " Lower Harz," as the 
east side of the Brocken is called in contradistinction to the west 
side or Upper Harz, being really much higher and better adapted to 
the growth of evergreens. 

No pen can describe the merriment, simplicity and gentleness with 
which the Use leaps or glides amid the wildly piled rocks which rise 
in her path, so that the water strangely whizzes or foams in one 
place amid rifted rocks, and in another wells through a thousand 
crannies, as if from a giant watering-pot, and then in collected 
stream trips away over the pebbles like a merry maiden. Yes, — the 
old legend is true, the Use is a princess, who laughing in beauty, 
runs adown the mountain. How her white foam-garment gleams in 
the sun-shine ! How her silvered scarf flutters in the breeze ! How 
her diamonds flash ! The high beech-tree gazes down on her like a 
grave father secretly smiling at the capricious self-will of a darling 
child, the white birch- trees nod their heads around like delighted 
aun^s, the proud oak looks on like a not over-pleased uncle, as 
though he must. pay for all the fine weather; the birds in the air 
sing their share in their joy, the flowers on the bank whisper, " Oh, 

9 



— 93 — 

take us with thee ! take us with thee ! dear sister !" but the wild 
maiden may not be withheld, and she leaps onward, and suddenly 
seizes the dreaming poet, and there streams over me a flower-rain ot 
ringing gleams and flashing tones, and all my senses are lost in 
beauty and splendour, as I hear only the voice sweet pealing as a 
flute. 

I am the Princess Use, 

And dwell in Ilsenstein ; 
Come with me to my castle, 

Thou shalt be blest — and mine ! 

"With ever-flowing fountains 

I'll cool thy weary brow ; 
Thou 'It lose amid their rippling, 

The cares which grieve thee now. 

In my white arms reposing 

And on my snow-white breast 
Thou'lt dream of old, old legends 

And sink in joy to rest. 

I'll kiss thee and caress thee, 

As in the ancient day 
I kissed the Emperor Henry, 

"Who long has passed away. 

The dead are dead and silent, 

Only the living love ; 
And I am fair and blooming, 

— Dost feel my wild heart move ? 

And as my heart is beating, 

My crystal castle rings ; 
Where many a knight and lady 

In merry measure springs. 



Silk trains are softly rustling, 
Spurs ring from night to morn ; 

And dwarfs are gaily drumming, 
And blow the golden horn. 

As round the Emperor Henry, 
My arms round thee shall fall ; 

I held his ears — he heard not 
The trumpet's warning call. 



— 99 - 

We feel infinite happiness when the outer world blends with the 
world of our own soul, and green trees, thoughts, the songs of birds, 
gentle melancholy, the blue of heaven, memory, and the perfume of 
flowers, run together in sweet arabesques. Women best understand 
this feeling, and this may be the cause that such a sweet, incredulous 
smile plays around their lips when we, with school-pride, boast of our 
logical deeds ;— how we have classified everything so nicely into sub- 
jective and objective,— how our heads are provided, apothecary-like, 
with a thousand drawers, one of which contains reason, another 
understanding, a third wretched wit, and the fifth nothing at all — 
that is to say, the Idea. 

As if wandering in dreams, I scarcely observed that we had left 
the depths of the Ilsethal and were now again climbing up hill. This 
was steep and difficult work, and many of us lost our breath. But 
like our late lamented cousin, who now lies buried at Molhi, we con- 
stantly kept in mind the ease with which we should descend, and were 
much the better off in consequence. Finally we reached the Ilsenstein. 

This is an enormous granite rock, which rises high and boldly from 
a glen. On three sides it is surrounded by woody hills, but from the 
fourth — the north — there is an open view, and we gaze upon the 
Ilsenburg and the Use lying far below, and our glances wander beyond 
into the lower land. On the tower-like summit of the rock stands a 
great iron cross, and in case of need there is also here a resting-place 
for four human feet. 

As nature, through picturesque position and form, has adorned the 
Ilsenstein with strange and beautiful charms, so has also Legend 
poured over it her rosy light. According to Gottschalk, " the peo- 
ple say that there once stood here an enchanted castle, in which dwelt 
the fair princess Ilse, who yet bathes every morning in the Use. H ; 
who is so fortunate as to hit upon the exact time and place, will be 
led by her into the rock, where her castle lies, and reeeive a royal 
reward." Others narrate a pleasant legend of the loves of the Lady - 
Ilse and of the Knight of Westenburg, which has been romantically 
sung by one of our most noted poets, in the "Evening Journal." 
Others again say that it was the old Saxon Emperor Henry, wh> 
passed in pleasure his imperial hours with the water-nymph, Ilse, in 
her enchanted castle. A later author, one Niemann, Esq., who has 
written a Hartz Guide, in which the heights of the hills, variations 
of tlae^compass, town finances, and similar matters are described 
with praise-worthy accuracy, asserts, however, that "what is narrated 
of the Princess Ilse belongs entirely to the realm of fable " So all 



— 100 — 

men, to whom a beautiful princess has never appeared, assert ; but 
we who have been especially favored by fair ladies, know better. 
And this the Emperor Henry knew too ! It was not without cause 
that the old Saxon emperors held so firmly to their native Hartz. 
Let any one only turn over the leaves of the fair Lunenburg Chron- 
icle, where the good old gentlemen are represented in wondrously 
true-hearted wood-cuts as well weaponed, high on their mailed war 
steeds ; the holy imperial crown on their blessed heads, sceptre and 
sword in firm hands ; and then in their dear bearded faces he can 
plainly read how they often longed for the sweethearts of their Hartz 
princesses, and for the familiar rustling of the Hartz forests, when 
they lingered in distant lands. Yes, — even when in the orange and 
poison-gifted Italy, whither they, with their followers, were often 
enticed by the desire of becoming Roman Emperors — a genuine Ger- 
man lust for title, which finally destroyed emperor and realm. 

I, however, advise every one who may hereafter stand on the sum- 
mit of the Ilsenburg, to think neither of emperor and crown, nor of 
the fair Use, but simply of his own feet. For as I stood there, lost 
in thought, I suddenly heard the subterranean music of the enchanted 
castle, and saw the mountains around begin to stand on their heads, 
while the red tiled roofs of Ilsenburg were dancing, and green trees 
flew through the air, until all was green and blue before my eyes, and 
I, overcome by giddiness, would assuredly have fallen iuto the abyss, 
had I not, in the dire need of my soul, clung fast to the iron cross. 
No one who reflects on the critically ticklish situation in which I was 
then placed, can possibly find fault with me for having done this. 



The Hartz Journey is, and remains, a fragment, and the variegated 
threads which were so neatly wound through it, with the intention to 
bind it into a harmonious whole, have been suddenly snapped asunder 
as if by the shears of the implacable Destinies. It may be that I will 
one day "weave them into new songs, and that that which is now 
stingily withheld, will then be spoken in full. But when or what 
we have spoken will all come to one and the same thing at last, 
provided that we do but speak. The single works may ever remain 
fragments, if they only form a whole by their union. 

By such a connection the defective may here and there be supplied, 
the rough be polished down, and that which is altogether too harsh be 
modified and softened. This is perhaps especially applicable to the first 
pages of the Hartz journey, and they would in all probability have caused 



— 101 — 

a far less unfavourable impression could the reader in some other place 
have learned that the ill-humor which I entertain for Gottingen in 
general, although greater than I have here expressed it, is still far 
from being equal to the respect which I entertain for certain individuals 
there. And why should I conceal the fact that I here allude par- 
ticularly to that estimable man, who in earlier years received me so 
kindly, inspiring me even then with a deep love for the study of His- 
tory ; who strengthened my zeal for it later in life and thus led my 
soul to calmer paths ; who indicated to my peculiar disposition its 
peculiar paths, and, who finally gave me those historical consolations, 
without which I should never have been able to support the painful 
events of the present day. I speak of George Sartorius, the great 
investigator of history and of humanity, whose eye is a bright star 
in our dark times, and whose hospitable heart is ever open to all the 
griefs and joys of others — for the needs of the beggar or the king, 
and for the last sighs of nations perishing with their gods. 

I cannot here refrain from remarking that the Upper Hartz — that 
portion of which I described as far as the beginning of the Ilsethal, 
did not by any means, make so favourable an impression on me as the 
romantic and picturesque Lower Hartz, and in its wild, dark fir-tree 
beauty contrasts strangely with the other, just as the three valleys 
forme/1 by the Use, the Bode and the Selke, beautifully contrast 
with each other, when we are able to individualize the character of 
each. They are three beautiful women of whom it is impossible to 
determine which is the fairest. 

I have already spoken and sung of the fair, sweet Use, and how 
sweetly and kindly she received me. The darker beauty — the Bode — 
was not so gracious in her reception, and as I first beheld her in the 
smithy-dark, Turnip-land, she appeared to me to be altogether ill-na- 
tured and hid herself beneath a silver-grey rain-veil : but with impa- 
tient love she suddenly threw it off, as I ascended the summit of the 
Rosstrappe, her countenance gleamed upon me with the sunniest 
splendour, from every feature beamed the tenderness of a giantess, 
and from the agitated, rocky bosom, there was a sound as of sighs of 
deep longing and melting tones of woe. Less tender, but far merrier, 
did I find the pretty Selke, an amiable lady whose noble simplicity 
and calm repose held at a distance all sentimental familiarity ; but 
who by a half-concealed smile betrayed her mocking mood. It was 
perhaps to this secret, merry spirit that I might have attributed the 
many " little miseries" which beset me in the Selkethal — as for instance, 
when I sought to spring over the rivulet, I plunged in exactly up to 

9* 



— 102 — 

my middle ; how when 1 continued my wet campaign with slippers, 
one of them was soon " not at hand," or rather " not at foot," for I 
lost it : — how a puff of wind bore away my cap, — how thorns scratched 
me, &c, &c. Yet do I forgive the fair lady all this, for she is fair. 
And even now she stands before the gates of Imagination, in all her 
silent loveliness and seems to say. "Though I laugh I mean no 
harm, and I pray you, sing of me !" The magnificent Bode also sweeps 
into my memory and her dark eye says, "Thou art like me. in pride 
and in pain, and I will that thou lovest me. Also the fair Use comes 
merrily springing, delicate and fascinating in mien, form, and motion, 
in all things like the dear being who blesses my dreams, and like her 
she gazes on me with unconquerable indifference, and is withal so 
deeply, so eternally, so manifestly true. Well, I am Paris, and I 
award the apple to the fair Use. 

It is the first of May, and spring is pouring like a sea of life over 
the earth, a foam of white blossoms covers the trees, the glass in the 
town windows flashes merrily, swallows are again building on the 
roofs, people saunter along the street, wondering that the air affects 
them so much, and that they feel so cheerful ; the oddly dressed Yier- 
lauder girls are selling bouquets of violets, foundling children, with 
their blue jackets and dear little illegitimate faces, run along the 
Jungfernstieg, as happily as if they had all found their fathers ; the 
beggar on the bridge looks as jolly as though he had won the first 
lottery-prize, and even on the grimy and as yet un-hung pedlar, who 
scours about with his rascally " manufactory goods" countenance, the 
sun shines with his best-natured rays, — I will take a walk beyond the 
town-gate. 

It is the first of May, and I think of thee, thou fair Ilse — or shall 
I call thee by the name which I better love, of Agnes ? — I think of 
thee and would fain see once more how thou leapest in light adown 
thy hill. But best of all were it, could I stand in the valley below, 
and hold thee in my arms. It is a lovely day ! Green — the colour of 
hope — is everywhere around me. Everywhere, flowers — those dear 
wonders — are blooming, and my heart will bloom again also. This 
heart is also a flower of strange and wondrous sort. It is no modest 
violet, no smiling rose, no pure lily, or similar flower, which with good 
gentle loveliness makes glad a maiden's soul, and may be fitly 
placed before her pretty breast, and which withers to-day, and 
to-morrow blooms again. No, this heart rather resembles that 
strange, heavy flower, from the woods of Brazil, which, according to 
the legend, blooms but once in a century. I remember well that I 






— 103 — 

once, when a boy, saw such a flower. During the night we heard an 
explosion, as of a pistol, and the next morning a neighbor's children 
told me that it was their " aloe," which had bloomed with the shot. 
They led me to their garden, where I saw to my astonishment that 
the low, hard plant, with ridiculously broad, sharp-pointed leaves, 
which were capable of inflicting wounds, had shot high in the air and 
bore aloft beautiful flowers, like a golden crown. We children could 
not see so high, and the old grinning Christian, who liked us all so 
well, built a wooden stair around the flower, upon which we scram- 
bled like cats, and gazed curiously into the open calyx, from which 
yellow threads, like rays of light, and strange foreign odors, pressed 
forth in unheard-of splendor. 

Yes, Agnes, this flower blooms not often, not without effort ; and 
according to my recollection it has as yet opened but once, and that 
must have been long ago — certainly at least a century since. And I 
believe that, gloriously as it then unfolded its blossoms, it must now 
miserably pine for want of sunshine and warmth, if it is not indeed 
shattered by some mighty wintry storm. But now it moves, and 
swells, and bursts in my bosom — dost thou hear the explosion? 
Maiden, be not terrified ! I have not shot myself, but my love has 
burst its bud and shoots upwards in gleaming songs, in eternal dithy- 
rambs, in the most joyful fullness of poesy! 

But if this high love has grown too high, then, young lady, take it 
comfortably, climb the wooden steps, and look from them down into 
my blooming heart. 

It is as yet early ; the sun has hardly left half his road behind 
him, and my heart already breathes forth so powerfully its perfumed 
vapor that it bewilders my brain, and I no longer know where irony 
ceases and heaven begins, or that I people the air with my sighs, and 
that I myself would fain dissolve into sweet atoms in the uncreated 
Divinity ; — how will it be when night comes on, and the stars shine 
out in heaven, "the unlucky stars, who could tell thee " 

It is the first of May, the lowest errand boy has to-day a right to 
be sentimental, and would you deny the privilege to a poet ? 






THE NORTH SEA. 



(1825 — 1826.) 



Motto : Xenophon's Anabasis, IT. 7. 

PART FIEST. 
(1825.) 



L 

TWILIGHTS 



On the white strand of Ocean, 

Sat I, sore troubled with thought, and alone. 

The sun sank lower and lower, and cast 

Red glowing shadows on the water, 

And the snow-white, rolling billows 

By the flood impelled, 

Foamed up while roaring nearer and nearer, 

A wondrous tumult, a whistling and whispering, 

A laughing and murmuring, sighing and washing, 

And mid them a lullaby known to me only — 

It seemed that I thought upon legends forgotten, 

World-old and beautiful stories, 

"Which I once, when little, 

From the neighbor's children had heard, 

When we, of summer evenings, 

Sat on the steps before the house-door, 



* The Translator does not venture to hope that he has succeeded in giving, in all 
respects, a perfect version of the extraordinary series of poems which form the first part 
of The Nor*h Sea. Those familiar with the original will possibly be lenient. 

(105) 



— 106 — 

Bending us down to the quiet narrative, 
With little, listening hearts, 
And curious cunning glances ; — 
While near, the elder maidens, 
Close by sweet smelling pots of roses, 
At the windows were calmly leaning, 
Kosy-hued faces, 
Smiling and lit by the moon. 



2. 

SUNSET. 



The sun in crimsoned glory falls 

Down to the ever quivering, 

Grey and silvery world sea ; 

Airy figures, warm in rosy-light, 

Quiver behind, while eastward rising. 

From autumn-like darkening veils of vapour. 

With sorrowful, death-pale features, 

Breaks the silent moon, 

Like sparks of light behind her, 

Cloud-distant, glimmer the planets. 

Once there shone in Heaven, 

Bound in marriage, 

Luna the goddess, and Sol, the god, 

And the bright thronging stars in light swam ,*otJT2d them, 

Their little and innocent children. 

But evil tongues came whisp'ring quarrels. 

And they parted in anger, 

The mighty, light-giving spouses. 

Now, but by day, in loneliest light 

The sun-god walks yonder on high, 

All for his lordliness 

Ever prayed to and sung by many 

By haughty, heartless, prosperous mortals, 

But still by night 

In heaven, wanders Luna. 



— 107 - 

The wretched mother 

With all her orphaned starry children, 

And she shines in silent sorrow, 

And soft-loving maidens and gentle poets, 

Offer their songs and their sorrows. 

The tender Luna ! woman at heart, 

Ever she loveth her beautiful lord 

And at evening, trembling and pale, 

Out she peeps from light cloud curtains, 

And looks to the lost one in sorrow, 

Fain would she cry in her anguish : " Come 

Come, the children are longing for thee — " 

In vain, — the haughty-souled god of fire. 

Flashes forth at the sight of pale Luna 

In doubly deep purple, 

For rage and pain, 

And yielding he hastens him down 

To his ocean-chilled and lonely bed. 

* * * * 

Spirits whispering evil 

By their power brought pain and destruction 
Even to great gods eternal. 
And the poor deities, high in the heavens, 
Travel in sorrow — 
Endless, disconsolate journeys, 
And they are immortal, 
Still bearing with them, 
Their bright-gleaming sorrow. 

But I, the mortal, 

Planted so lowly, with death to bless me, 

I sorrow no longer. 



3. 

NIGHT ON THE SEA-SHORE 

Starless and cold is the Night, 

The wild sea foams ; 
And over the sea, flat on his face, 



— 108 — 

Lies the monstrous terrible North-wind, 
Sighing and sinking his voice as in secret, 
Like an old grumbler, for once in good humor, 

Unto the ocean he talks, 
And he tells her wonderful stories, — 

Giant legends, murderous-humored, 

"Very old sagas of Norway, 
And midst them, far sounding, he howls while laughing 

Sorcery-songs from the Edda, 
Grey old Eunic sayings, 

So darkly-stirring and magic-inspiring, 
That the snow-white sea-children 
High are springing and shouting, 

Drunk with wanton joy. 

Meanwhile, on the level, white sea-beach, 

Over the sand ever-washed by the flood, 

Wanders a stranger with wild-storming spirit, 

And fiercer far than wind and billow ; 

Go where he may, 

Sparks are flashing and sea-shells are cracking, 

And he wraps him well in his iron-grey mantle, 

And quickly treads through the dark-waving Night 

Safely led by a distant taper 

Which guiding and gladdening glimmers 

From the fisherman's lonely hovel. 

Father and brother are on the sea, 

And all alone and sad, there sits 

In the hovel the fisher's daughter, 

The wondrous -lovely fisher's daughter, 

She sits by the hearth, 

Listening to the boiling kettle's 

Sweet prophetic, domestic humming ; 

Scattering light-crackling wood on the fire, 

And blows on it, 

Till the flashing, ruddy flame rays 

Shine again in magic lustre 

On her beautiful features, 

On her tender, snow-white shoulder, 

Which moving, comes peeping 

Over heavy, dark grey linen, 



— 109 — 

And on the little industrious hand, 

Which more firmly binds her under garment 

Round her well-formed figure. 

But lo ! at once the door springs wide, 

And there enters in haste the benighted stranger ; 

Love assuring rest his glances 

On the foam-white slender maiden, 

Who trembling near him stands, 

Like a storm terrified lily ; 

And he casts on the floor his mantle, 

And laughs and speaks : 

"Seestthou, my child, I keep my word, 
For I seek thee, and with me comes 
The olden time, when the bright gods of Heaven 
Came once more to the daughters of mortals, 
And the daughters of mortals embraced them, 
And from them gave birth to 
Sceptre-carrying races of monarchs, 
And heroes astounding the world. 
Yet stare not, my child, any longer 
At my divinity, 

And 1 entreat thee, make some tea with rum, 
For without, it is cold, 
And by such a night air 
We too oft freeze, yes we, the undying, 
And easily catch the divinest catarrhs 
And coughs, which may last us for ever." 



4. 

POSEIDON. 



The sun's bright rays were playing, 

Over the far, away-rolling sea; 

Far in the harbor glittered the ship, 

Which to my home ere long should bear me ; 

But we wanted favourable breezes, 

And I still sat calm on the snow-white sea beach, 

Alone on the strand, 

10 



— 110 — 

And I read the song of Odysseus, . 

The ancient, ever new-born song, 

And from its ocean-rippled pages, 

Friendly there arose to rne 

The breath of immortals, 

And the light-giving human spring tide, 

And the soft blooming heaven of Hellas. 

My noble heart accompanied truly, 

The son of Laertes in wand'ring and sorrow, 

Set itself with him, troubled in spirit, 

By bright gleaming fire-sides, 

By fair queens, winning, purple spinning, 

And help'd him to lie and escape, glad singing 

From giant-caverns and nymphs seducing, 

Followed behind in fear-boding night, 

And in storm and shipwreck, 

And thus suffered with him unspeakable sorrow. 

Sighing I spoke : " thou evil Poseidon, 

Thy wrath is fearful, 

And I myself dread 

For my own voyage homeward." 

The words were scarce spoken, 
When up foamed the sea, 
And from the sparkling waters rose 
The mighty bulrush crowned sea-god, 
And scornful he cried : 

" Be not afraid, small poet ! 

I will not in leastwise endanger 

Thy wretched vessel, 

Nor put thy precious being in terror, 

With all too significant shaking. 

For thou, small poet, hast troubled me not, 

Thou hast no turret — though trifling — destroyed 

In the great sacred palace of Priam, 

Nor one little eye-lash hast thou e'er singed, 

In the eye of my son Polyphemus ; 

Thee with her counsels did never protect 



— ill — 

The goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene 
And so spake Poseidon, 
And sank him again in the sea ; 
And over the vulgar sailor's joke 
There laughed under the water 
Amphitrite, the fat old fish-wife, 
And the stupid daughters of Nereus. 



HOMAGE. 



Ye poems ! ye mine own valiant poems ! 

Up, up and weapon ye ! 

Let the loud trump be ringing, 

And lift upon my shield 

The fair young maiden, 

Who, now my heart in full, 

Shall govern as a sov'reign queen. 

All hail to thee, thou fair young queen ! 

From the sun above me 

I tear the flashing, ruddy gold, 

And weave therefrom a diadem 

For thy all holy head. 

From the fluttering, blue-silken heaven's curtain, 

Wherein night's bright diamonds glitter, 

I cut a costly piece, 

To hang as coronation-mantle, 

Upon thy white, imperial shoulders. 

I give to thee, dearest, a city 

Of stiffly adorned sonnets, 

Proud triple verses and courteous stanzas ; 

My wit thy courier shall be, 

And for court-fool my fantasy, 

As herald, the soft smiling tears in my escutcheon, 

And with them, my humor. 

But I, myself, oh gentle queen, 

I bow before thee, lowly, 

And kneeling on scarlet velvet cushions, 

I here offer to thee 



— 112 — 

The fragments of reason, 

Which from sheer pity once were left to me 

By her who ruled before thee in the realm. 



6. 

EXPLANATION. 

Adown and dimly came the evening, 

Wilder tumbled the waves, 

And I sat on the strand, regarding 

The snow-white billows dancing, 

And then my breast swelled up like the sea, 

And longing, there seized me a deep home-sickness, 

For thee, thou lovely form, 

Who everywhere art near 

And everywhere dost call, 

Everywhere, everywhere, 

In the rustling of breezes, the roaring of Ocean, 

And in the sighing of this, my sad heart. 

With a light reed I wrote in the sand : 

" Agnes, I love but thee !" 

But wicked waves came washing fast 

Over the tender confession, 

And bore it away. 

Thou too fragile reed, thou false shifting sand, 

Ye swift flowing waters, I trust ye no more ! 

The heaven grows darker, my heart grows wilder, 

And, with strong right hand, from Norway's forests 

I'll tear the highest fir-tree, 

And dip it adown 

Into ./Etna's hot glowing gulf, and with such a 

Fiery, flaming, giant graver, 

I'll inscribe on heaven's jet-black cover: 

" Agnes, I love but thee." 

And every night I'll witness, blazing 
Above me, the endless flaming verse, 
And even the latest races born from me 
Will read, exulting, the heavenly motto : 
"Agnes, I love but thee!" 



— 113 — 

NIGHT IN THE CABIN. 

The sea hath many pearl-drops. 
The heaven hath many planets, 
But this fond heart, my heart, 
My heart hath tender true-love. 

Great is the sea and the heaven, 
Yet greater is my heart ; 
And fairer than pearl drops or planets 
Flashes the love in my bosom. 

Thou little gentle maiden, 

Come to my beating heart; 

My heart, and the sea, and the heaven, 

Are lost in loving frenzy. 

* * * 

On the dark blue heaven curtain, 
Where the lovely stars are gleaming, 
Fain would I my lips be pressing, 
Press them wildly, storm-like weeping. 

And those planets are her bright eyes 
But a thousand times repeated ; 
And they shine and greet me kindly, 
From the dark blue heaven's curtain. 

To the dark blue heavenly curtain 
To the eyes I love so dearly, 
High my hands I raise devoutly, 
And I pray, and I entreat her : 

Lovely eyes, ye lights of mercy, 
Oh, I pray ye, bless my spirit, 
Let me perish, and exalt me 
Up to ye, and to your heaven. 

* * * 

From the heavenly eyes above me, 
Snow-light sparks are trembling, falling 
Through the night, and all my spirit, 
Wide in love, flows forth and wider. 
10* 



— 114 — 

Oh, ye heavenly eyes above me! 
Weep your tears upon my spirit, 
That those living tears of starlight 
O'er my soul may gently ripple, 

* * * 

Cradled calm by waves of ocean, 
And by wondrous dreaming, musing 
Still I lie within the cabin, 
In my gloomy corner hammock. 

Through the open dead-light gazing. 
Yonder to the gleaming star-light. 
To the dearest, sweetest glances 
Of my sweetest, much-loved maiden. 

Yes, those sweetest, best loved glances 
Calm above my head are shining, 
They are ringing, they are peeping, 
From the dark blue vault of heaven 

To the dark blue vault of heaven 
Many an hour I gaze in rapture, 
Till a snow-white cloudy curtain 
Hides from me the best-loved glances 

On the planking of the vessel, 

Where my light dreaming head lies, 

Leap up the waters — the wild, dark waters — 

They ripple and murmur 

Eight straight in my ear : 

"Thou crazy companion! 

Thy arm is short, and the heaven is far, 

And the stars up yonder are nailed down firmly ; 

In vain is thy longing, in vain is thy sighing, 

The best thou canst do is to go to sleep. 

•55- * * * 

And I was dreaming of a heath so dreary, 
Forever mantled with the sad, white snow, 
And 'neath the sad white snow I lay deep buried, 
And slept the lonely ice-cold sleep of death. 

And yet on high from the dark heaven were gazing 
Adown upon my grave the starlight glances, 
Those sad sweet glances ! and they gleamed victorious 
So calmly cheerful and yet full of true love. 



— 115 — 

STOKM. 

Loud rages the storm, 

And he whips the waves, 

And the waters, rage-foaming and leaping, 

Tower on high, and with life there come rolling 

The snow white water-mountains, 

And the vessel ascends them, 

Earnest striving, 

Then quickly it darts adown, 

In jet-black, wide opening, wat'ry abysses. — 

Oh, Sea ! 

Mother of Beauty, born of the foam-billow! 

Great Mother of all Love ! be propitious ! 

There flutters, corpse foreboding, 

Around us the spectre-like sea gull, 

And whets his sharp bill on the top-mast, 

And yearns with hunger-lust, for the life-blood 

Of him who sounded the praise of thy daughter, 

And whom thy grandson, the little rogue, 

Chose for a plaything, 

In vain my entreaties and tears ! 

My plainings are lost in the terrible storm, 

Mid war-cries of north-winds ; 

There's a roaring and whistling, a crackling and howling, 

Like a mad-house of noises ! 

And amid them I hear distinctly, 

Sweet enticing harp tones, 

Melody mad with desire, 

Spirit melting and spirit rending, 

Well I remember the voices. 

Far on the rocky coast of Scotland, 

Where the old grey castle towers 

Over the wild breaking sea, 

In a lofty arch6d window, 

There stands a lovely sickly dame, 

Clear as crystal, and marble pale, 



— 116 — 

And she plays the harp and sings ; 
Through her locks the wind is waving, 
And bears her gloomy song, 
Over the broad, white storm rolling sea. 



9. 

CALM AT SEA. 

Ocean silence ! rays are falling, 
From the sun upon the water, 
Like a train of quivering jewels 
Sweeps the ship's green wake behind us. 

Near the rudder lies our boatswain, 
On his face, and deeply snoring ; 
By the mast, his canvass sewing, 
Sits a little tarry sailor. 

But o'er all his dirty features 
Glows a blush, and fear is twitching 
Round his full sized mouth, and sadly 
Gaze his large and glittering eye-balls. 

For the captain stands before him, 
Fumes and swears and curses " Eascal ! 
Rascal ! — there's another herring 
Which you've stolen from the barrel !" 

Ocean silence ! From the water 
Up a little fish comes shooting, 
Warms its head in pleasant sunlight, 
With its small tail merry paddling. 

But the sea-gull, sailing o'er us, 
Darts him headlong on the swimmer, 
And, with claws around his booty, 
Flies and fades far, far above me. 



— 117 — 
10- 

A SEA PHANTOM. 

But I still leaned on the edge of the vessel, 

Gazing with sad-dreaming glances, 

Down at the crystal-mirror water, 

Looking yet deeper and deeper — 

'Till in the sea's abysses, 

At first, like quivering vapours, 

Then slowly, — slowly,- — deeper in colour, 

Domes of churches and towers seemed rising, 

And then, as clear as day a city grand, 

Quaint, old-fashioned, — Netherlandish. 

And living with men. 

Men of high standing, wrapped in black mantles, 

With snowy-white neck-ruffs and chains of honour 

And good long rapiers, and good long faces, 

Treading in state o'er the crowded market, 

To the high steps of the town hall, 

Where stone-carved statues of Kaisars 

Kept watch with their swords and sceptres. 

Nor distant, near houses in long array, 

With windows clear as mirrors, 

Stand lindens, cut in pyramidal figures, 

And maidens in silk-rustling garments wander 

A golden zone round the slender waist, 

With flower-like faces modestly curtained 

In jet-black velvet coverings, 

From which a ringlet-fulness comes pressing. 

Quaint cavalieros in old Spanish dress, 

Sweep proudly along and salute them. 

Elderly ladies 

In dark-brown, old fashioned garments, 

With prayer-book and rosary held in their hands 

Hasten, tripping along, 

To the great Cathedral, 

Attracted by bells loud ringing. 

And full-sounding organ-tones. 

E'en I am seized at that far sound, 
With strange, mysterious trembling, 



— 118 — 

Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow, 

Steals through my heart, 

My heart as yet scarce healed ; 

It seems as though its wounds, forgotten, 

By loving lips again were kissed, 

And once again were bleeding, 

Drops of burning crimson, 

Which long and slowly trickle down 

Upon an ancient house below there 

In the deep, deep sea town, 

On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house, 

Where lone and melancholy, 

Below by the window a maiden sits, 

Her head on her arm reclined — 

Like a poor and uncared-for child, 

And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child ! 

Thou didst hide thus, my dear, 

So deep, so deep from me, 

In infant-like humor, 

And now canst not arise, 

And sittest strange amid stranger people, 

For full five hundred years, 

And I meanwhile, my spirit all grief, 

Over the whole broad world have sought thee. 

And ever have sought thee, 

Thou dearly beloved, 

Thou the long-lost one, 

Thou finally found one — 

At last I have found thee, and now am gazing 

Upon thy sweet face, 

With earnest, faithful glances, 

Still sweetly smiling — 

And never will I again on earth leave thee, 

I am coming adown to thee, 

And with longing, wide-reaching embraces, 

Love, I leap down to thy heart ! 

But just at the right instant 

The captain caught and held me safe, 

And drew me from danger, 

And cried, half-angry laughing 

" Doctor — is Satan in you ?" 



— 119 — 
11- 

PUEIFICATION. 

Stay thou in. gloomy ocean caverns, 

Maddest of dreams, 

Thou who once so many a night, 

Hast vexed with treacherous joy my spirit ; 

And now, as ocean sprite, 

Even by sun-bright day dost annoy me — 

Rest where thou art, to eternity, 

And I will cast thee as offering down, 

All my long-worn sins and my sorrows, 

And the cap and bells of my folly, 

Which so long round my head have rung, 

And the ice-cold slippery serpent-skin 

Of hypocrisy, 

Which so long round my soul has been twining, 

The sad, sick spirit, 

The tjod disbelieving, and angel denying, 

Miserable spirit — 

Hillo ho ! hallo ho ! There comes the wind ! 

Up with the sails ! they nutter and belly ; 

Over the silent, treacherous surface 

Hastens the ship, 

And loud laughs the spirit set free. 



12. 

PEACE. 

High in heaven the sun was standing, 

By cold-white vapors be-dimmed, 

The sea was still, 

And musing, I lay by the helm of the vessel, 

Dreamily musing, — and half in waking, 

And half in slumber, I saw in vision, 

The Saviour of Earth. 

In flowing snow-white garments 

He wandered giant-high 

Over land and sea ; 

He lifted his head unto Heaven, 



— 120 — 

His hands were stretched forth in blessing 

Over land and sea; 

And as a heart in his breast 

He bore the sun orb, 

The ruddy, radiant sun-orb, 

And the ruddy, radiant, burning heart 

Poured forth its beams of mercy 

And its gracious and love-bless'd light, 

Enlight'ning and warming, 

Over land and sea. 

Sweetest bell-tones drew us gaily, 

Here and there, like swans soft leading 

By bands of roses the smooth-gliding ship. 

And swam with it sporting to a verdant country, 

Where mortals dwelt, in a high towering 

And stately town. 

Oh, peaceful wonder ! How quiet the city 

Where the sounds of this world were silent, 

Of prattling and sultry employment, 

And o'er the clean and echoing highways 

Mortals were walking, in pure white garments, 

Bearing palm branches, 

And whenever two met together, 

They saw each other with ready feeling, 

And thrilling with true love and sweet self-denial, 

Each pressed a kiss on the forehead, 

And then gazed above 

To the bright sun-heart of the Saviour, 

Which, gladly atoning his crimson blood, 

Flashed down upon them, 

And, trebly blessed, thus they spoke : 

"Blessed be Jesus Christ!" 

If thou hadst but imagined this vision, 

What wouldst thou have given, 

My excellent friend? 

Thou who in head and limbs art so weak, 

But in faith still so mighty, 

And in single simplicity honourest the Trinity, 

And the lap-dog, and cross, and fingers 



— 121 — 

Of thy proud patronness daily kissest, 
And by piety hast worked thyself up 
To " Hofrath," and then to " Justizrath," 
And now art councillor under government, 
Jn the pious town, 

Where sand and true faith are at home, 
And the patient Spree, with its holy water, 
Purifies souls and weakens their tea — 
If thou hadst but imagined this vision, 
My excellent friend ! 

Thou'dst take it to some noble quarter for sale. 
Thy pale, white, quivering features 
Would all be melting in pious humility, 
And His Gracious Highness, 
Enchanted and enraptured, 
Praying would sink, like thee, on his knee, 
And his eyes, so sweetly beaming, 
Would promise thee an augmented pension 
Of a hundred current Prussian dollars, 
And thou wouldst stammer, thy hands enfolding: 
** Blessed be Jesus Christ 1" 



PART SECOND. 



(1826.) 

L 

SEA GREETING. 

Thalatta ! Thalatta J 

Be thou greeted! thou infinite sea! 

Be thou greeted ten thousand times 

With heart wild exulting, 

As once thou wert greeted 

By ten thousand Grecian spirits, 

Striving with misery, longing for home again 

Great, world-famous Grecian true-hearts. 

The wild waves were rolling, 

Were rolling and roaring, 

The sunlight poured headlong upon them 

His flickering rosy radiance, 

The frightened fluttering trains of sea-gulls 

Went flutt'ring up, sharp screaming, 

Loud stamped their horses, loud rung their armour. 

And far it re-echoed, like victor's shout : 

Thalatta! Thalatta! 

Greeting to thee, thou infinite sea, 

Like the tongue of my country ripples thy water 

Like dreams of my childhood seem the glimmer, 

On thy wild -wavering watery realm, 

And ancient memories again seemed telling, 

Of all my pleasant and wonderful play things, 

Of all the bright coloured Christmas presents, 

Of all the branches of crimson coral, 

Small gold fish, pearls and beautiful sea shells, 

Which thou in secret ever keep'st 

Beneath in thy sky clear crystal home. 

(123^ 



— 124 — 

Oh ! how have I yearned in desolate exile ! 

Like to a withered flowret 

In a botanist's tin herbarium, 

Lay the sad heart in my breast ; 

Or as if I had sat through the weary winter, 

Sick in a hospital dark and gloomy, 

And now I had suddenly left it, 

And all bewild'ring there beams before me 

Spring, —green as emerald, waked by the sun rays, 

And white tree-blossoms are rustling around me, 

And the young flow'rets gaze in my face, 

With eyes perfuming and coloured, * 

And it perfumes and hums, and it breathes and smiles, 

And in the deep blue heaven sweet birds are singing — 

Thalatta ! Thalatta 1 

Thou brave, retreating heart ! 

How oft, how bitter oft 

The barbarous dames of the North have pressed thee round ! 

From blue eyes, great and conquering, 

They shot their burning arrows ; 

With artful polished phrases, 

Often they threatened to cleave my bosom, 

With arrow-head letters full oft they smote 

My poor brain bewildered and lost — 

All vainly held I my shield against them, 

Their arrows hissed, and their blows rang round me, 

And by the cold North's barbarous ladies 

Then was I driv'n, e'en to the sea, 

And free breathing I hail thee, oh Sea ! 

Thou dearest, rescuing Sea, 

Thalatta! Thalatta! 



2. 

STOEM. 

Dakk broods a storm on the ocean, 
And through the deep, black wall of clouds, 
Gleams the zig-zag lightning flash, 
Quickly darting and quick departing. 



— 125 — 

Like a joke from the head of Kronion, 

Over the dreary, wild waving water, 

Thunder afar is rolling, 

And the snow-white steeds of the waves are springing, 

Which Boreas himself begot 

On the beautiful mares of Erichthon 

And ocean birds in their fright are fluttering, 

Like shadowy ghosts o'er the Styx, 

Which Charon sent back from his shadowy boat. 

Little ship, — wretched yet merry, 

Which yonder art dancing a terrible dance ! 

JEolus sends thee, the fastest companions, 

Wildly they're playing the merriest dances ; 

The first pipes soft — the next blows loud, 

The third growls out a heavy basso — 

And the tottering sailor stands by the helm, 

And looks incessantly on the compass, 

The quivering soul of the ship, 

Lifting his hands in prayer to Heaven — 

O save me, Castor, giant-like hero, 

And thou who fight'st with fist, Polydeuces ! 



3. 

THE SHIPWRECKED. 

Lost hope and lost love ! All is in ruins ! 
And I myself, like a dead body, 
Which the sea has thrown back in anger, 
Lie on the sea beach ; 
On the waste, barren sea beach, 
Before me rolleth a waste of water, 
Behind me lies starvation and sorrow, 
And above me go rolling the storm-clouds, 
The formless, dark grey daughters of air, 
Which from the sea, in cloudy buckets, 
Scoop up the water, 
Ever wearied lifting and lifting, 
And then pour it again in the sea, 
A mournful, wearisome business, 
And useless too as this life of mine. 
11* 



, — 126 — 

The waves are murm'ring, the sea-gulls screaming, 
Old recollections seem floating around. 
Long vanished visions, long faded pictures. 
Torturing, yet sweet, seem living once more .' 

There lives a maid in Norland, 

A lovely maid, right queenly fair ; 

Her slender cypress-like figure 

Is clasped by a passionate snowy- white robe ; 

The dusky ringlet-fulness, 

Like a too happy night, comes pouring 

From the lofty braided-hair crowned forehead, 

Twining all dreamily sweet 

Round the lovely snow-pale features, 

And from the lovely, snow-pale features, 

Great and wondrous, gleams a dark eye, 

Like a sun of jet black fire. 

Oh thou bright, black sun eye, how oft, 

Enraptured oft, I drank from thee 

Wild glances of inspiration, 

And stood all quivering, drunk with their fire — 

And then swept a smile all mild and dove-like, 

Round the lips high mantling, proud and lovely; 

And the lips high mantling, proud and lovely, 

Breathed forth words as sweet as moonlight, 

Soft as the perfume of roses — 

Then my soul rose up in rapture 

And flew, like an eagle, high up to heaven ! 

Hush ! ye billows and sea-mews ! 

All is long over, hope and fortune, 

Fortune and true love ! I lie on the sea beach, 

A weary and wreck-ruined man, 

Still pressing my face, hot glowing, 

In the cold, wet sand. 



4. 

SUNSET. 

The beautiful sun, 

Has calmly sunk down to his rest in the sea ; 

The wild rolling waters already are tinged 



— 127 — 

With night's dark shade, 

Though still the evening crimson 

Strews them with light, as yet bright golden, 

And the stern roaring might of the flood, 

Crowds to the sea-beach the snowy billows, 

All merrily quickly leaping, 

Like white woolly flocks of lambkins, 

Which youthful shepherds at evening, singing, 

Drive to their homes. 

" How fair is the sun !" 
Thus spoke, his silence breaking, my friend, 
Who with me on the sea-beach loitering 
And jesting half, and half in sorrow, 
Assured me that the bright sun was 
A lovely dame, whom the old ocean god 
For " convenience" once had married. 
And in the day-time she wanders gaily 
Through the high heaven, purple arrayed, 
And all in diamonds gleaming, 
And all beloved and all amazing 
To every worldly being : 
And every worldly being rejoicing, 
With warmth and splendor from her glances ; 
Alas ! at evening, sad and unwilling, 
Back must she bend her slow steps 
To the dripping home, to the barren embrace 
Of grisly old age. 

" Believe me," — added to this my friend, 
And smiling and sighing, and smiling again— 
" They're leading below there the lovingest life ! 
For either they're sleeping or they are scolding, 
Till high uproars above here the sea, 
And the fisher in watery roar can hear 
How the Old One his wife abuses. — 
" Bright round measure of all things ! 
Wooing with radiance ! 
All the long day shinest thou for other loves, 
By night, to me, thou art freezing and weary." 
At such a stern curtain lecture, 



— 128 — 

Of course the Sun-bride falls to weeping, 
Falls to weeping and wails her sorrow, 
And cries so wretchedly, that the Sea God 
Quickly, all desperate leaps from his bed, 
And straight to the ocean surface comes rising, 
To get to fresh air — and his senses," 

" So I beheld him, but yesterday night, 
Rising breast high up from the Ocean, 
He wore a long jacket of yellow flannel, 
And a new night-cap, white as a lily 
And a wrinkled faded old face." 



5. 

THE SONG OF THE OCEANIDES. 

Colder the twilight falls on the Ocean, 

And lonely, with his own lonelier spirit, 

Yon sits a man on the barren strand, 

And casts death-chilling glances on high, 

To the wide-spread, death-chilling vault of heaven, 

And looks on the broad, wide wavering sea ; 

And over the broad, white-wavering sea, 

Like air-borne sailors, his sighs go sweeping, 

Returning once more sad-joyful, 

But to discover, firm fastened, the heart, 

Wherein they fain would anchor — 

And he groans so loud, that the snow-white sea-mews 

Frightened up from their nests in the sand heaps, 

Around in white clouds flutter, 

And he speaks unto them the while, and laughing : 

"Ye black legged sea-fowl, 

With your white pinions o'er the sea fluttering, 

With crooked dark bills drinking the sea-water, 

And rank, oily seal-blubber devouring, 

Your wild life is bitter, e'en as your food is ! 

While I here, the fortunate, taste only sweet things J 

I've tasted the sweetest breath of roses, 



— 129 — 

Those nourished with moonshine nightingale brides, 

I eat the most delicate sugar meringues, 

And the sweetest of all I've tasted : 

Sweetest true love, and sweetest returned love. 

She loves me ! she loves me ! the lovely maiden ! 
She now stands at home — perhaps at the window, 
And looks through the twilight, afar on the highway, 
And looks and longs but for me— that's certain, 
All vainly she gazes around, still sighing, 
Then sighing, she walks adown in the garden, 
Wandering in moonlight and perfume, 
And speaks to the sweet flowers — oft telling to them 
How I, the beloved one, deserve her love, 
And am so agreeable — that's certain ! 
In bed reposing, in slumber, in dreams, 
There flits round her, happy, my well-loved form, 
*E'en in the morning at breakfast ; 
On the glittering bread and butter, 
She sees my dear features sweet smiling, 
And she eats it up out of love — that's certain !" 

Thus he's boasting and boasting, 

And 'mid it all, loud scream the sea-gulls, 

Like old and ironical tittering ; 

The evening vapours are climbing up ; 

From clouds of violet — strange and dream-like, 

Out there peeps the grass-yellow moon 

High are roaring the ocean billows, 

And deep from the high up-roaring sea, 

All sadly as whispering breezes, 

Sounds the lay of the Oceanides, 

The beautiful, kiud-hearted water-fairies, 

And clearest among them, the sweet notes are ringing 

Of the silver-footed bride of Peleus, 

And they sigh and are singing : 

" Oh fool, thou fool ! thou weak boasting fool ! 

Thou tortured with sorrows ! 

Vanished and lost are the hopes thou hast cherished, 

The light sporting babes of thy heart's love ; 

And ah ! thy heart, thy Niobe heart 



— 130 — 

By grief turned to stone ! 

And in thy wild brain 'tis night, 

And through it is darting the lightning of madness, 

And thou boastest from anguish ! 

Oh fool ! thou fool, thou weak boasting fool ! 

Stiff-necked art thou, like thy first parent, 

The noblest of Titans, who from the immortals 

Stole heavenly fire and on Man bestowed it, 

And eagle-tortured, to rocks firm fettered, 

Defied Olympus, enduring and groaning, 

Until we heard it deep down in the sea, 

And gathered around him with songs consoling. 

Oh fool, thou fool! thou weak boasting fooll 

Thou who art weaker by far than he, 

Had'st thou thy reason thou'dst honour th' immortals, 

And bear with more patience the burden of suffering, 

And bear it in patience, in silence, in sorrow 

Till even Atlas his patience had lost, 

And the heavy world from his shoulders was thrown 

Into endless night. 

So rang the deep song of the Oceanides, 

The lovely compassionate water-spirits. 

Until the wild waters had drowned their music — 

Behind the dark clouds down sank the moon, 

Tired night was yawning, 

And I sat yet awhile in darkness sad weeping. 



6. 

THE GODS OF GEEECE. 

Thou full blooming Moon ! In thy soft light, 
Like wavering gold, bright shines the sea ; 
Like morn's first radiance, yet dimly enchanted, 
It lies o'er the broad, wide, strand's horizon ; 
And in the pure blue heaven all starless 
The snowy clouds are sweeping. 
Like giant towering shapes of immortals 
Of white gleaming marble. 



— 131 — 

Nay, but I err ; no clouds are those yonder ! 
Those are in person the great gods of Hellas, 
Who once so joyously governed the world, 
But now long banished, long perished, 
As monstrous terrible spectres are sweeping 
O'er the face of the midnight heaven. 

Gazing and strangely bewildered I see 
The airy Pantheon, 

The awfully silent, fearful far sweeping 
Giant-like spectres. 

He there is Kronion, the King of Heaven, 

Snow-white are the locks of his head, 

The far-famed locks which send throbs through Olympus, 

He holds in his hand the extinguished bolt, 

Sorrow and suffering sit stern on his brow, 

Yet still it hath ever its ancient pride. 

Once there were lordlier ages, oh Zeus, 

When thou did'st revel divinely, 

Mid fair youths and maidens and hecatombs rich ! 

But e'en the immortals may not reign forever, 

The younger still banish the elder, 

As thou, thyself, didst banish thy father, 

And drove from their kingdom thy Titan uncles, 

Jupiter Parricida ! 

Thee too I know well, proudest sorceress ! 

Spite of all thy fearful jealousy, 

Though from thee another thy sceptre hath taken 

And thou art no more the Queen of Heaven, 

And thy wondrous eyes seem frozen, 

And even thy lily-white arms are powerless, 

And never more falls thy vengeance 

On the god-impregnated maiden, 

And the wonder working son of Jove, 

Well too I know thee, Pallas Athene ! 

With shield and wisdom still then could'st not 

Avert the downfall of immortals ! 

Thee, too, I know now, yes thee, Aphrodite ! 

Once the Golden One — now the Silver One ! 

E'en yet the charm of thy girdle adorns thee ; 

But I shudder at heart before thy beauty, 



— 132 — 

And could I enjoy thy burning embraces 

Like the ancient heroes, I'd perish with fear ; 

As the goddess of corpses thou seem'st to me, 

Venus Libitina ! 

No more in fond love looks upon thee, 

There, the terrible Ares. 

Sadly now gazeth Phoebus Apollo, 

The youthful. His lyre sounds no more, 

Which once rang with joy at the feasts of the gods. 

And sadder still looks Hephaistos, 

And, truly the limping one ! nevermore 

Will he fill the office of Hebe, 

And busily pour out, in the Assembly, 

The sweet tasting nectar. — And long hath been silent 

The ne'er to be silenced laugh of immortals. 

Gods of old time, I never have loved ye ! 

For the Greeks did never chime with my spirit, 

And e'en the Eomans I hate at heart, 

But holy compassion and shudd'ring pity 

Streams through my soul, 

As I now gaze upon ye, yonder 

Gods long neglected, 

Death-like, night-wandering shadows ; 

Weak as clouds which the wind hath scattered — 

And when I remember how weak aud windy 

The Gods now are who o'er you triumphed, 

The new and the sorrowful gods who now rule, 

The joy-destroyers in lamb-robes of meekness — 

Then there comes o'er me gloomiest rage, 

Fain would I shatter the modern temples, 

And battle for ye, ye ancient immortals, 

For ye and your good old ambrosial right. 

And before your lofty altars, 

Once more erected, with incense sweet smoking, 

Would, I once more, kneeling, adoring, 

And praying, uplift my arms to you. 

For constantly, ye old immortals, 
Was it your custom, in mortal battles, 
Ever to lend your aid to the conqueror, 
Therefore is man now far nobler than ye, 



— 133 — 

And in the contest I now take part 

With the cause of the conquered immortals. 

'Twas thus I spoke, and blushes were visible 

Over the cold white serial figures, 

Gazing upon me like dying ones, 

"With pain transfigured, and quickly vanished. 

The moon concealed her features 

Behind a cloud, which darkly went sweeping : 

Loudly the wild sea rose foaming, 

And the beautiful calm beaming stars, victorious 

Shone out o'er Heaven. 



7. 

QUESTIONING. 

By the sea, by the dreary, darkening sea 

Stands a youthful man, 

His heart all sorrowing, his head all doubting, 

And with gloomiest accent he questions the billows : 

" Oh solve me Life's riddle I pray ye, 

The torturing ancient enigma, 

O'er which full many a brain hath long puzzled, 

Old heads in hieroglyph marked mitres, 

Heads in turbans and caps mediaeval, 

Wig-covered pates and a thousand others, 

Sweating, wearying heads of mortals — 

Tell me what signifies Man f 

Whence came he hither ? Where goes he hence ? 

Who dwells there on high in the radiant planets ?" 

The billows are murmuring their murmur unceasing. 
Wild blows the wind — the dark clouds are fleeting, 
The stars are still gleaming, so calmly and cold, 
And a fool awaits an answer. 



12 



— 134 — 

8. 

THE PHCENIX. ' 

A bird from the far west his way came winging ; 

He eastward flies 

To the beautiful land of gardens, 

Where softest perfumes are breathing and growing, 

And palm trees rustle and brooks are rippling— 

And flying, sings the bird so wondrous : 

" She loves him — she loves him ! 
She bears his form in her little bosom, 
And wears it sweetly and secretly hidden, 
Yet she knows it not yet ! 
Only in dreams he comes to Tier, 
And she prays and weeps, his hand oft kissing, 
His name often calling, 
And calling she wakens, and lies in terror, 
And presses in wonder those eyes, soft gleaming — 
She loves him ! she loves him ! 



9. 

ECHO. 

I leaned on the mast ; on the lofty ship's deck 

Standing, I heard the sweet song of a bird. 

Like steeds of dark green, with their manes of bright silver, 

Sprang up the white and wild curling billows. 

Like trains of wild swans, went sailing past us, 

With shimmering canvass, the Helgolanders, 

The daring nomades of the North Sea. 

Over my head, in the infinite blue, 

Went sailing a snowy white cloud. 

Bright flamed the eternal sun-orb, 

The rose of heaven, the fire blossoming, 

Who, joyful, mirrored his rays in ocean 

Till heaven and sea, and my heart besides 

Rang back with the echo : 

She loves him ! she loves him ! 






— 135 — 
10. 

SEA SICKNESS. 

The dark grey vapors of evening 
Are sinking deeper adown on the sea, 
Which rises darkling to their embrace, 
And 'twixt them on drives the ship. 

Sea-sick, I sit as before by the main-mast, 

Making reflections of personal nature, 

World ancient, gray colored examinings, 

Which Father Lot first made of old, 

When he too much enjoyed life's good things, 

And afterwards found that he felt unwell. 

Meanwhile I think, too, on other old legends : 

How cross and scrip-bearing pilgrims, long perished, 

In stormiest voyage, the comforting image 

Of the blessed Virgin, confiding, kissed ; 

How knights, when sea-sick, in dole and sorrow, 

The little glove of some fair lady 

Pressed to their lips, and soon were calm ; — 

But here I'm sitting and munching in sorrow 

A wretched herring, the salted refreshment 

Of drunken-sickness and heavy sorrow ! 

While I'm groaning, lo ! our ship 

Fights the wild and terrible flood ; 

As a capering war-horse now she bounds, 

Leaping on high, till the rudder cracks, 

Now darting head-forward adown again. 

To the sad, howling, wat'ry gulf; 

Then, as if all careless — weak with love — 

It seems as though 'twould slumber 

On the gloomy breast of the giantess Ocean, 

Who onward comes foaming — 

When sudden, a mighty sea water-fall, 

In snowy foam-curls together rolls, 

Wetting all, and me, with foam. 

This tottering, and trembling, and shaking, 

Is not to be borne with ! 

But vainly sweep my glances and seek 



— 136 — 

The German coast line. Alas ! but water, 
And once again water — wild, waving water ! 

As the winter wanderer, at evening, oft longs 
For one good warm and comforting cup of tea, 
Even so now longs my heart for thee, 
My German Fatherland ! 

May, for all time, thy lovely valleys be covered 

With madness, hussars, and wretched verses, 

And little tracts, luke-warm and watery ; 

May, from this time forth, all thy zebras 

Be nourished with roses instead of thistles ; 

And may for ever, too, thy noble monkeys 

In a garb of leisure go grandly strutting, 

And think themselves better than all the other 

Low-plodding, stupid, mechanical cattle. 

May, for all time, too, thy snail-like assemblies 

Still deem themselves immortal 

Because they so slowly go creeping ; 

And may they daily go on deciding 

If the maggots of cheeses belong to the cheese ; 

And long be lost in deliberation, 

How breeds of Egyptian sheep may be bettered, 

That their wool may be somewhat improved, 

And the shepherd may shear them like any other, 

Sans difference — 

Ever, too, may injustice and folly 

Be all thy mantle, Germany ! 

And yet I am longing for thee: 

For e'en at the worst thou art solid land. 



1L 

IN PORT 



Happy the man who is safe in his haven, 
And has left far behind the sea and its sorrows, 
And now so warm and calmly sits 
In the cosy Town Cellar of Bremen. 

Oh, how the world, so home-like and sweetly, 
In the wine-cup is mirrored again. 






— 137 — 

And how the wavering microcosmus 
Sunnily flows through the thirstiest heart ! 
All things I behold in the glass — 
Ancient and modern histories by myriads, 
Grecian and Ottoman, Hegel and Gans, 
Forests of citron and watches patrolling, 
Berlin, and Schilda, and Tunis, and Hamburg, 
But above all the form of the loved one, 
An angel's head on a Rhine-wine-gold ground. 

Oh, how fair ! how fair art thou, beloved ! 

Thou art as fair as roses ! 

Not like the roses of Shiraz, 

The brides of the nightingale sung by old Hafiz ! 

Not like the rose of Sharon, 

Holily blushing and hallowed by prophets ; 

Thou art like the rose in the cellar of Bremen ! * 

That is the Rose of Roses, 

The older she grows, the sweeter she bloometh, 

And her heavenly perfume hath made me happy, 

It hath inspired me — hath made me tipsy, 

And were I not held by the shoulder fast, 

By the Town Cellar Master of Bremen, 

I had gone rolling over ! 

The noble soul ! we sat there together, 

And drank too, like brothers, 

Discoursing of lofty, mysterious matters, 

Sighing and sinking in solemn embraces, 

He made me a convert to Love's holy doctrine ; 

I drank to the health of my bitterest enemy, 

And I forgave the worst of all poets, 

As I myself some day shall be forgiven ; 

Till piously weeping, before me 

Silently opened the gates of redemption, 



*In the Rathskeller— Council Cellar or Town Hall Cellar— of Bremen, there is kept a 
celebrated tun called The Rose containing wine three hundred years old. Around it 
are the Twelve Apostles, or hogsheads filled with wine of a lesser age. When a bottle 
is drawn from the Rose it is supplied from one of the Apostles, and by this arrange- 
ment the contents of the Rose are thus kept up to the requisite standard of antiquity. 
Those who are familiar with the writings of Hauff will remember the exquisite and 
genial sketch entitled, "A Fantasy in the Rathskeller of Bremen."— Note by Translator, 

12* 



— 138 — 

Where the twelve Apostles, the holy barrels, 

Preach in silence and yet so distinctly 

Unto all nations. 

Those are the sort 

Invisible outwards in sound oaken garments, 

Yet they within are lovely and radiant, 

For all the proudest Levites of the Temple, 

And the lifeguardsmen and courtiers of Herod, 

Glittering in gold and arrayed in rich purple ; — 

Still I have ever maintained 

That not amid common, vulgar people, 

No — but in the elite of society, 

Constantly lived the monarch of Heaven. 

Hallelujah ! How sweetly wave round me 

The palm trees of Bath-El ! 

How sweet breathe the myrrh shrubs of Hebron 1 

How Jordan ripples and tumbles with gladness, 

And my own immortal spirit tumbleth, 

And I tumble with it, and tumbling 

I'm helped up the stairway into broad daylight, 

By the brave Council Cellar Master of Bremen! 

Thou brave Council Cellar Master of Bremen ! 
Seest thou upon the roofs of the houses sitting 
Lovely, tipsy angels sweetly singing ; 
The radiant sun, too, yonder in Heaven 
Is only a crimson, wine-colored proboscis, 
Which the World-Soul protrudeth. 
And round the red nose of the World-Soul 
Circles the whole of the tipsified world. 



12, 

EPILOGUE. 

As in the meadow the wheat is growing, 
So, sprouting and waving in mortal souls, 
Thoughts are growing. 
Aye — but the soft inspirations of poets 
Are like the blue and crimson flowrets, 
Blossoming amid them. 



— 139 — . 

Blue and crimson blossoms ! 

The ill natured reaper rejects ye as useless, 

Block-headed simpletons scorn ye while threshing, 

Even the penniless wanderer, 

Who, by your sight is made glad and inspired, 

Shaketh his head, 

And calls ye weeds, though lovely. 

Only the fair peasant maiden, 

The one who twineth garlands, 

Doth honor you and plucks you, 

And decks with you her lovely tresses, 

And when thus adorned, to the dance hastens, 

Where the pipe and the viol are merrily pealing ; 

Or to the tranquil beech tree, 

Where the voice of the loved one more pleasantly 30unds, 

Than the pipe or the viol. 



PART THIRD 



(1826.) 



WEITTEN ON THE ISLAND NOKDEKNEY. 

The natives are generally poor as crows, and live by theif 

fishery, which begins in the stormy month of October. Many of 
these islanders also serve as sailors in foreign merchant vessels, and 
remain for years absent from home, without being heard from by their 
friends. Not unfrequently they perish at sea. I have met upon the 
island poor women, all the male members of whose families had thus 
been lost — a thing which is likely enough to occur, as the father gen- 
erally accompanies his sons on a voyage. 

Maritime life has for these men an indescribable attraction, and yet 
I believe that they are happiest when at home. Though they may 
have arrived in their ships at those southern lands, where the sun 
shines brighter, and the moon glows with more romance, still all the 
flowers there do not calm their hearts, and 4n the perfumed home of 
Spring they still long for their sand island, for their little huts, and 
for the blazing hearth, where their loved ones, well protected in wool- 
len jackets, crouch, drinking a tea which differs from sea-water only 
in name, and gabble a jargon of which the real marvel is that they 
can understand it themselves. 

That which connects these men so firmly and contentedly, is not so 
much the inner mystical sentiment of love, as that of custom — that 
mutual " through-and-above-living" according to nature, or that of social 
directness. They enjoy an equal elevation of soul, or, to speak more 
correctly, an equal depression, from which result the same needs and 
the same desires, the same experiences and the same reflections. 
Consequently, *they more readily understand each other, and sit 
socially together by the fire in their little huts, crowd up together 
when it is cold, see the thoughts in each other's eyes before a word is 
spoken, all the conventional signs of daily life are readily intelligible, 
and by a single sound, or a single gesture, they excite in each other 
that laughter, those tears, or that pious feeling, which we could 

(141) 



— 142 — 

not awaken in onr like without long preliminary explanations, 
expectorations and declamations. For at bottom we live spir- 
itually alone, and owing to peculiar methods of education, and peculiar 
reading, we have each formed a different individual character. Each 
of us, spiritually masked, thinks, feels and acts differently from bis 
fellow, and misunderstandings are so frequent, that even in roomy 
houses, life in common costs an effort, and we are everywhere limited,, 
everywhere strange, and everywhere, so to speak, in a strange land. 

Entire races have not unfrequently lived for ages, as equal in every 
particular, in thought and feeling, as these islanders. The Romish 
Church in the Middle Ages seemed to have desired to bring about a 
similar condition in the corporate members of all Europe, and conse- 
quently took under its protection every attribute of life, every power 
and developement — in short, the entire physical and moral man. It 
cannot be denied that much tranquil happiness was thereby effected, 
that life bloomed more warmly and inly, and that Art, calmly devel- 
oping itself, unfolded that splendor at which we are even yet amazed, 
and which, with all our dashing science, we cannot imitate. But the 
soul hath its eternal rights, it will not be darkened by statutes, nor 
lullabied by the music of bells — it broke from its prison, shattering 
the iron leading-strings by which Mother Church trained it along — 
it rushed in a delirium of joyous liberty over the whole earth, climbed 
the highest mountain peaks, sang and shouted for wantonness, re- 
called ancient doubts, pored over the wonders of day, and counted 
the stars by night. We know not as yet the number of the stars, 
we have not yet solved the enigmas of the marvels of the day, the 
ancient doubts have grown mighty in our souls — are we happier than 
we were before ? We know that this question, as far as the multi- 
tude are concerned, cannot be lightly assented to ; but we know, also, 
that the happiness which we owe to a lie is no true happiness, and 
that we, in the few and far-between moments of a god-like condition, 
experience a higher dignity of soul and more happiness than in the 
long, onward, vegetating life of the gloomy faith of a coal-burner. 

In every respect that church government was a tyranny of the 
worst sort. "Who can be bail for those good intentions, as I have 
described them ? Who can prove, indeed, that eviT intentions were 
not mingled with them ? Rome would always rule, and when her 
legions fell, she sent dogmas into the provinces. Like a giant spider 
she sat in the centre of the Latin world, and spun over it her endless 
web. Generations of people lived beneath it a peaceful life, for they 
believed that to be a heaven near them, which was only a Roman 



— 143 — 

web. Only the higher striving spirits, who saw through its, meshes, 
felt themselves bound down and wretched, and when they strove to 
break away, the crafty spider easily caught them, and sucked the 
bold blood from their hearts ; — and was not the dreamy happiness of 
the purblind multitude purchased too dearly by such blood ? The 
days of spiritual serfdom are over ; weak with age, the old cross 
spider sits between the broken pillars of her Colisaeum, ever spin- 
ning the same old web — but it is weak and brittle, and catches only 
butterflies and bats, and no longer the wild eagles of the North. 

It is right laughable to think that just as I was in the mood to 
expand with such good will over the intentions of the Roman Church, 
the accustomed Protestant feeling which ever ascribes to her, the 
worst, suddenly seized upon me, and it is this very difference of 
opinion in myself, which again supplies me with an illustration of the 
incongruities of the manner of thinking prevalent in these days. 
What we yesterday admired, we hate to-day, and to-morrow, perhaps, 
we ridicule it with perfect indifference. 

Considered from a certain point, all is equally great or small, and 
I thus recurred to the great European revolutions of ages, while I 
looked at the little life of our poor islanders. Even the?/, stand on 
the margin of such a new age, and their old unity of soul, and sim- 
plicity will be disturbed by the success of the fashionable watering- 
place recently established here, inasmuch as they every day pick up 
from the guests some new bits of knowledge, which they must find 
difficult to reconcile with their ancient mode of life. If they stand of 
an evening before the lighted windows of the conversation-hall, and 
behold within, the conduct of the gentlemen and ladies, the meaning 
glances, the longing grimaces, the voluptuous danees, the full con- 
tented feasting, the avaricious gambling, et cetera, it is morally certain 
that evil results must ensue, which can never be counterbalanced by the 
money which they derive from this bathing establishment. This money 
will never suffice for the consuming new wants which they conceive, and 
from this must result disturbances in life, evil enticements, and greater- 
sorrows. When but a boy, I always experienced a burning desire when 
beautiful freshly baked tarts, which I could not obtain, were carried past 
me, reeking in delicious fragranee and exposed to view. Later in 
life I was goaded by the same feeling, when I beheld fashionably un- 
dressed, beautiful ladies walk by me, and I often reflect that the poor 
islanders, who have hitherto lived in such a state of blessed innocence, 
have here unusual opportunities for similar sensations, and that it 
would be well if the proprietors of the beautiful tarts, and the ladies 



— 144: — 

in question, would cover them up a little more carefully. These 
numerous and exposed delicacies, on which the natives can only feed 
with their eyes, must terribly whet their appetites, and if the poor 
female-islanders, when enceinte, conceive all sorts of sweet-baked 
fancies, and even go so far as to bring forth children which strongly 
resemble the aristocratic guests, the matter is easily enough under- 
stood. I do not wish to be here understood as hinting at any immo- 
dest or immoral connexions. The virtue of the islanderesses is 
amply protected by their ugliness, and still more so by an abominably 
fishy odour which, to me at least, is insupportable. Should, in fact, 
children with fashionable-boarder faces be here born into the world, 
I should much prefer to recognize in it a psycological phenomenon, 
and explain it by those material-mystical laws, which Goethe has so 
beautifully developed in his Elective Affinities. 

The number of enigmatical appearances in nature, which can be 
explained by those laws, is truly astonishing. When I, last year, 
owing to a storm at sea, was cast away on another East Frisian 
island, I there saw hanging, in a boatman's hut, an indifferent engrav- 
ing, bearing the title, la tentation du viellard, and representing an old 
man disturbed in his study by the appearance of a woman, who, 
naked to the hips, rose from a cloud ; and singular to relate, the 
boatman's daughter had exactly the same wanton pug-dog face 
as the woman in the picture ! — To cite another example : in the 
house of a money-changer, whose wife attended to the business, 
and carefully examined coins from morning till night, I found that 
the children had in their countenances a startling likeness to all 
the greatest monarchs of Europe, and when they were all assem- 
bled, fighting and quarreling, I could almost fancy that I beheld a 
congress of sovereigns ! 

On this account, the impression on coins is for politicians a matter 
of no small importance. For as people so often love money from 
their very hearts, and doubtlessly gaze lovingly on it, their children 
often receive the likeness of their prince impressed thereon, and thus 
the poor prince is suspected of being in sober sadness, the father of his 
subjects. The Bourbons had good reasons for melting down the Napo- 
leons d'or — not wishing to behold any longer so many Napoleon heads 
among their subjects. Prussia has carried it further than any other 
m her specie politics, for they there understand by a judicious inter- 
mixture of copper to so make their new small change, and changes, 
that a blush very soon appears on the cheeks of the monarch. Ir. 
consequence, the children in Prussia have a far healthier appearance 



— 145 — 

than of old, and it is a real pleasure to gaze upon their blooming little 
silver groscken faces. 

I have, while pointing out the destruction of morals with which 
the islanders are threatened, made no mention of their spiritual 
defence, the Church. How this really appears, is beyond my powers 
of description, not having been in it. The Lord knows I am a good 
Christian, and even often get so far as to intend to make a call at 
his house, but by some mishap I am invariably hindered in my good 
intentions. Generally this is done by some long winded gentleman 
who holds me by the button in the street, and even if I get to the 
gate of the temple, some jesting, irreverent thought comes over me 
and then I regard it as sinful to enter. Last Sunday something of 
the sort happened, when just before the door of the Church there 
came into my head an extract from Goethe's Faust, where the hero 
passing with Mephistopheles by a cross, asks the latter, 

"Mephisto, art in haste? 
Why cast'st thou at the cross adown thy glances?" 

To which Mephistopheles replies, 

" I know right well it shows a wretched taste, 
But crosses never ranked among my fancies." 

These verses, as I remember, are not printed in any edition of 
Faust, and only the late Hofrath Moeitz, who had read them in 
Goethe's manuscript, gave them to the world in his " Philip Reiser," 
a long out-of-print romance, which contains the history of the author, 
or rather the history of several hundred dollars which his pocket did 
not contain, and owing to which his entire life became an array of 
self-denials and economies, while his desires were anything but pre- 
suming — namely, to go to Weimar and become a servant in the 
house of the author of Werther. His only desire in life was to 
live in the vicinity of the man, who of all mankind, had made the 
deepest impression on his soul. 

Wonderful ! even then, Goethe had awoke such inspiration, and 
yet it seems that " our third after-growing race," is first in condition 
to appreciate his true greatness. 

But this race has also brought forth men, into whose hearts only 
foul water trickles, and who would fain dam up in others the springs 
of fresh healthy life-blood; men whose powers of enjoyment are 
extinguished, who slander life, and who would render all the beauty 
and glory of this world disgusting to others, representing it as a bait 
which the Evil One has placed here simply to tempt us, just as a 
cunning house-wife leaves during her absence the sugar bowl exposed, 

13 



- 146 — 

with every lump duly counted, that she may test the honesty of the 
maid. These men have assembled a virtuous mob around them, 
preaching to their adherents a crusade against the Great Heathen 
and against his naked images of the gods, which they would gladly 
replace with their disguised dumb devils. 

Masks and disguises are their highest aim, the naked and divine 
is fatal to them, and a Satyr has always good reasons for donning 
pantaloons and persuading Apollo to do the same. People then 
call him a moral man, and know not that in the CLAUREN-smiles of a 
disguised Satyr there is more which is really repulsive than in the 
entire nudity of a Wolfgang- Apollo, and that in those very times 
when men wore puff-breeches, which required in make sixty yards of 
cloth, morals were no better than at present. 

But will not the ladies be offended at my saying breeches instead 
of pantaloons ? — Oh the refined feelings of ladies ! In the end only 
eunuchs will dare to write for them, and their spiritual servants in 
the West, must be as harmless as their body servants in the East. 

Here a fragment from Berthold's diary comes into my head. 

" If we only reflect on it, we are all naked under our clothes/' 

said Doctor M , to a lady who was offended by a rather cynical 

remark to which he had given utterance. 

The Hanoverian nobility is altogether discontented with Goethe, 
asserting that he disseminates irreligion, and that this may easily 
bring forth false political views, — in fine, that the people must by 
means of the old faith be led back to their ancient modesty and 
moderation. I have also recently heard much discussion of the 
question whether Goethe were greater than Schiller. But lately 
I stood behind the chair of a lady, from whose very back at least 
sixty-four descents were evident, and heard on the Goethe and 
Schiller theme a warm discourse between her and two Hanoverian 
nobles, whose origin was depicted on the Zodiac of Dendera. One 
of them, a long lean youth, full of quicksilver, and who looked like 
a barometer, praised the virtue and purity of Schiller, while the 
other, also a long up-sprouted young man, lisped verses from the 
" Dignity of Woman," smiling meanwhile as sweetly as a donkey 
who has stuck his head into a pitcher of molasses, and delightedly 
licks his lips. Both of the youths confirmed their assertions with 
the refrain, " But he is still greater. He is really greater in fact. 
He is the greater, I assure you upon my honor he is greater." The 
lady was so amiable as to bring me too into this aesthetic ( onversa- 
tion and inquire : "Doctor, what do you think of Goethe?" I, how- 



— 147 — 

ever, crossed my arms on my breast, bowed my head as a believer 
and said : La illali ill allah wamohammed rasul allah ! 

The lady had, without knowing it, put the shrewdest of questions. 
It is not possible to directly inquire of a man — " What thinkest thou 
of Heaven and Earth ? what are thy views of Man and Human Life ? 
art thou a reasonable being or a poor dumb devil ?" Yet all these 
delicate queries lie in the by no means insidious question : " What 
do you think of Goethe ?" For while Goethe's works lie before our 
eyes, we can easily compare the judgment which another pronounces 
with our own, and thus obtain an accurate standard whereby to 
measure all his thoughts and feelings. Thus has he unconsciously 
passed his own sentence. But, as Goethe himself, like a commor 
world thus lies open to the observation of all, and gives us opportu- 
nities to learn mankind ; so can we in turn best learn to know him 
by his own judgment of objects which are exposed to all, and on 
which the greatest minds have expressed opinions. In this respect 
I would prefer to point to Goethe's Italian Journey, as we are all 
familiar with the country in question, either from personal experience 
or from what we have learned from others. Thus we can remark 
how every writer views it with subjective eyes, the one with displeased 
looks which beheld only the worst, another with the inspired eyes of 
Corinna, seeing everywhere the glorious, while Goethe with his clear 
Greek glances sees all things, the dark and the light, colours nothing 
with his individual feelings, and pictures the land and its people in 
the true outlines and true colours in which God clothed it. 

This is a merit of Goethe's which will not be appreciated until 
later times, for we, as we are nearly all invalids, remain too firm in 
our sickly ragged romantic feelings which we have brought together 
from all lands and ages, to be able to see plainly how sound, how 
uniform, and how plastic Goethe displays himself in his works. He 
himself as little remarks it, — in hid naive unconsciousness of his own 
ability, he wonders when " a reflection on present things" or "objec- 
tive thought" is ascribed to him, and while in his autobiography he 
seeks to supply us with a critical aid to comprehend his works, he 
still gives us no measure of judgment, but only new facts whereby to 
judge him. Which is all natural enough, for no bird can fly over 
itself. 

Later times will also in addition to this ability of plastic percep- 
tion, feeling and thinking, discover much ii G oethe of which we have 
as yet no shadow of an idea. The works of the soul are immutably 
firm, but criticism is somewhat volatile ; she is born of the views of 



— 148 — 

the age, is significant only for it, and if she herself is not of a sect 
winch involves artistic value, as for example that of S chlegel., she passes 
with her time, to the grave. Every age when it gets new ideas, gets 
with them new eyes, and sees much that is new in the old efforts of 
mind which have preceded it. A Schubarth now sees in the Iliad, 
something else and something more than all the Alexandrians ; and 
critics will yet come, who will see more than a Schubarth in Goethe. 

And so I finally prattled with myself, to Goethe ! But such 
digressions are natural enough, when, as on this island, the roar of the 
ocean thrills our ears and tunes the soul according to its will. 

There is a strong north-east wind blowing, and the witches have 
once again mischief in their heads. There are many strange legends 
current here of witches, who know how to conjure storms, — for on 
this, as on all northern islands, there is much superstition. The sea- 
folks declare that certain islands are secretly governed by peculiar 
witches, and that when mishaps occur to vessels passing them, it is to 
be attributed entirely to the evil will of these mysterious guardians. 
While I, last year, was some time at sea, the steersman of our ship 
told me, one day, that witches were remarkably powerful on the Isle 
of Wight, and sought to delay every ship which sailed past during 
the day, that it might then by night be dashed to pieces on the 
rocks, or driven ashore. At such times the witches are heard whiz- 
zing so sharply through the air, and howling so loudly around the ship, 
that the Klabotermann can with difficulty withstand them. When I 
asked who the Klabotermann was, the sailor answered very earnestly, 
that he was the good invisible guardian angel of the ship, who takes 
care lest ill luck befall honest and orderly skippers, who look after 
everything themselves, and provide a place for everything. The 
brave steersman assured me, in a more confidential tone, that I could 
easily hear this spirit in the hold of the vessel, where he willingly 
busied himself with stowing away the cargo more securely, and that 
this was the cause of the creaking of the barrels and the boxes when 
the sea rolled high, as well as of the groaning- of the planks and beams. 
It was also true, that the Klabotermann often hammered without, on 
the ship, and this was a warning to the carpenter to repair some 
unsound spot which had been neglected. But his favorite fancy is to 
sit on the top-sail, as a sign that a good wind blows or will blow ere 
long. In answer to my question if he were ever seen, he replied, 
« No — that he was never seen, and that no man wished to see him, 
for he only showed himself when there was no hope of being saved." 
The steersman could not vouch from his own experience, but he had 



— 149 — 

heard others say, that the Klabotermann was often heard giving 
orders from the topsail to his subordinate spirits ; and that when the 
storm became too powerful for him, and utter destruction was 
unavoidable, he invariably took a place at the helm — showing him- 
self for the first time — and then breaking it, vanished. Those who 
beheld him at this terrible moment were always engulphed the 
moment after. 

The captain who had listened with me to this narration, smiled more 
graciously than I could have anticipated from his rough countenance, 
hardened by wind and weather, and afterwards told me that fifty or 
a hundred years ago, the faith in the Klabotermann was so strongly 
impressed on the sailor's minds, that at meals they always reserved 
for him the best morsels, and that on some vessels this custom was 
still observed. 

I often walk alone on the beach, thinking over these marvellous 
sea legends. The most attractive of them all is that of the Flying 
Dutchman, who is seen in a storm with all sail set, and who occa- 
sionally sends out a boat to ships, giving them letters to carry home, 
but which no one can deliver, as they are all addressed to persons 
long since dead. And I often recall the sweet old story of the fisher 
boy, who one night listened securely on the beach to the music of the 
Water-Nixies, and afterwards wandered through the world, casting 
all into enchanted raptures who listened to the melody of the sea- 
nymph waltz. This legend was once told me by a dear friend, as we 
were at a concert in Berlin. I once heard just such an air played by 
the wondrous boy, Felix Mendelsohn Bartholdi. 

There is an altogether peculiar charm in excursions around the 
island. But the weather must be fair, the clouds must assume strange 
forms, we must lie on our backs, gazing into heaven — and at the same 
time have a piece of heaven in our hearts. Then the waves will 
murmur all manner of strange things, all manner of words in which 
sweet memories flutter, all manner of names which, like sweet associ- 
ations, re-echo in the -soul — " Evelina !" Then ships come sailing 
by, and we greet them as if we could see them again every day. But 
at night there is something uncanny and mysterious in thus meeting 
strange ships at sea ; and we imagine that our best friends, whom we 
have not seen for years, sail silently by, and that we are losing them 
for ever. 

I love the sea, as my own soul. 

I often feel as if the sea were really my own sc ul itself, and as 
there are in it hidden plants, which only rise at the instant in 
13* 



— 150 — 

which they bloom above the water, and sink again at the instant in 
which they fade ; so from time to time there rise wondrous flower 
forms from the depths of my soul, and breathe forth perfume, and 
gleam, and vanish — " Evelina !" 

They say that on a spot not far from this island, where there is 
now nothing but water, there once stood the fairest villages and 
towns, which were all suddenly overwhelmed by the sea, and that in 
clear weather, sailors yet see in the ocean, far below, the gleam- 
ing pinnacles of church spires, and that many have often heard, early 
on quiet Sabbath mornings, the chime of their bells. The story is 
true, for the sea is my own soul. 

" There a wondrous world to ocean given, 
Ever hides from daylight's searching gleam ; 
But it shines at night like rays from heaven, 
In the magic mirror of my dream." 

Awakening then I hear the echoing tones of bells and the song of 
holy voices — " Evelina !" 

If we go walking on the strand, the ships sailing by present a 
beautiful sight. When in full sail they look like great swans. But 
this is particularly beautiful when the sun sets behind some passing 
ship, and this seems to be rayed round as with a giant glory. 

Hunting, on this beach, is also said to present many very great 
attractions. As far as I am concerned, I am not particularly quali- 
fied to appreciate its charms. A love for the sublime, the beautiful 
and the good is often inspired in men by education, but a love for 
hunting lies in the blood. When ancestors in ages beyond recollec- 
tion killed stags, the descendant still finds pleasure in this legitimate 
occupation. But my ancestors did not belong to the hunters so much 
as to the hunted, and the idea of attacking the descendants of those 
who were our comrades in misery goes against my grain. Yes, I 
know right well, from experience, and from moral conviction, that it 
would be much easier for me to let fly at a hunter who wishes that 
those times were again here when human beings were a higher class 
of game. God be praised ! those days are over ! If such hunters 
now wish to chase a man, they must pay him for it, as was the case 
with a runner whom I saw two years ago in Grb'ttingen. The poor 
being had already run himself weary in the heat of a sultry Sunday, 
when some Hanoverian youths, who there studied humaniora, offered 
him a few dollars if he would run the whole course over again. The 



— 151 - 

man did it. He was deathly pale, and wore a red jacket, and close 
behind him, in the whirling dust, galloped the well-fed noble youths, 
on high horses, whose hoofs occasionally struck the goaded, gasping 
oeing, — and he was a man ! 

For the sake of the experiment, for I must accustom my blood to 
a better state, I went hunting yesterday. I shot at a few sea-gulls 
which flew too confidently around, and could not of course know that 
I was a bad shot. I did not wish to shoot them, but only to warn 
them from going another time so near persons with loaded guns ; but 
my gun shot " wrong," and I had the bad luck to kill a young gull. 
It was well that it was not an old one, for what would then have be- 
come of the poor little gulls which as yet unfledged lie in their sand- 
nests on the great downs, and which, without their mother, must 
starve to death. Before I went out I had a presentiment that some- 
thing unfortunate would happen, for a hare run across my path. 

But I am in an altogether strange mood when I wander alone by 
twilight on the strand — behind me the flat downs, before me the 
•vaving, immeasurable ocean, and above me, heaven, like a giant 
crystal dome — for I then appear to myself so ant-like small, and yet 
my soul expands so world-wide. The loft}' simplicity of nature, as she 
here surrounds me, at the same time subdues and elevates my heart, and 
indeed, in a higher degree than in any other scene, however exalting. 
Never did any dome as yet appear great enough to me ; my soul, 
with its Titan prayer, ever strove higher than the Gothic pillars, and 
would ever fain pierce the vaulted roof. On the peaks of the Eoss- 
trappe, at first sight, the colossal rocks, in their bold groupings, had 
a tolerably imposing effect on me ; but this impression did not long 
endure, my soul was only startled, not subdued, and those monstrous 
masses of stone became, little by little, smaller in my eyes, and finally 
they merely appeared like the little ruins of a giant palace, in which, 
perhaps, my soul would have found itself comfortably at home. 

Kidiculous as it may sound, I cannot conceal it, but the dispropor- 
tion between soul and body torments me not a little, and here on the 
sea, in the sublimest natural scenery, it becomes very significant, and 
the metempsychosis is often the subject of my reflection. Who 
knows the divine irony which is accustomed to bring forth all manner 
«of contradictions between soul and body? Who knows in what 
tailor's body the soul of Plato now dwells, and in what schoolmas- 
ter the soul of Caesar may be found ? Who knows if the soul of 
Gregory VII. may not sit in the body of the Great Turk, and feel 
itself, amid the caressing hands of a thousand women, more comfort- 



— 152 — 

able than of old in its purple coelibate's cowl? On the other hand, 
how many true Moslem souls, of the days of Ali, may, perhaps, be 
now found among our anti-Hellenic statesmen ! The souls of the 
two thieves who were crucified by the Saviour's side, now hide, per- 
haps, in fat Consistorial bodies, and glow with zeal for orthodox doc- 
trine, The soul of Gthengis-khan lives, it may be, in some literary 
reviewer, who daily, without knowing it, sabres down the souls of his 
truest Baschkirs and Calmucks, in a critical journal ! Who knows ! 
who knows ! The soul of Pythagoras hath travelled, mayhap, into 
some poor candidate for a University degree, and who is plucked at 
examination, because he cannot explain the Pythagorean doctrines ; 
while in his examiners dwell the souls of those oxen which Pytha- 
goras once offered to the immortal gods for joy at discovering the 
doctrines in question. The Hindoos are not so stupid as our mis- 
sionaries think. They honour animals for the human souls which 
they suppose dwell in them, and if they found hospitals for invalid 
monkies, after the manner of our academies, nothing is more likely 
than that in those monkies dwell the souls of great scholars, since it 
is evident enough that among us, in many great scholars are only 
apish souls ! 

But who can look with the omniscience of the past, from above, 
on the deeds of mortals. When I, by night, wander by the sea, listen- 
ing to the song of the waves, and every manner of presentiment and 
of memory awakes in me, then it seems as though I had once heard the 
like from above, and had fallen, through tottering terror, to earth ; it 
seems too as though my eyes had been so telescopically keen that I 
could see the stars wandering as large as life in Heaven, and had been 
dazzled by all their whirling splendor ; — then as if from the depth of 
a millennium, there come all sorts of strange thoughts into my soul, 
thoughts of wisdom old as the world, but so obscure that I cannot 
surmise what they mean ; only this much I know that all our cunning, 
knowledge, effort, and production, must to some higher spirit seem as 
little and valueless as those spiders seemed to me which I have so 
often seen in the library of Grottingen. There they sat, so busily 
weaving, on the folios of the World's History, looking so philosophically 
confident on the scene around them, and they had so exactly the pedantic 
obscurity of Gottingen, and seemed so proud of their mathematical 
knowledge — of their contributions to Art — of their solitary reflec- 
tions — and yet they knew nothing of all the wonders which were in 
the book on which they were born, on which they had passed their 
lives, nnd on which they must die, if not disturbed by the prying Doctor 



— 153 — 

L — . And who is the prying Doctor L — ? His soul once dwelt in 
just such a spider and now he guards the folios on which he once sat, 
— and if he reads them he never learns their true contents. 

What may have happened on the ground where I now walk ? A 
Conrector who was bathing here, asserted that it was in this place, that 
the religious rites of Hertha, or more correctly speaking, of Forsetb 
were once celebrated ■ — those rites of which Tacitus speaks so 
mysteriously. Let us only trust that the reporter from whom 
Tacitus picked up the intelligence, did not err and mistake a 
bathing wagon for the sacred vehicle of the goddess. 

In the year 1819, I attended in Bonn, in one and the same season, 
four courses of lectures on German antiquities, from the remotest 
times. The first of these was the history of the German tongue by 
Schlegel who for three months developed the most old fashioned 
hypotheses on the origin of the Teutonic race ; 2d. the Germania of 
Tacitus by Arndt, who sought in the old German forests for those 
virtues which he misses in the saloons of the present day ; 3d. Ger- 
man National Law, by Hullmann, whose historical views are the 
least vague of those current, and 4th. Primitive German History, by 
Eadloff, who at the end of the half year had got no further than 
the time of Sesostris. In those days the legend of the ancient Hertha 
may have interested me more than at present. I did not at all admit 
that she dwelt in Riigen, and preferred to believe that it was on an 
East Frisian island. A young savant always likes to have his own 
private hypothesis-. But at any rate I never supposed that I should 
some day wander on the shore of the North Sea, without thinking 
of the old Goddess with patriotic enthusiasm. Such is in fact, not 
altogether the case, for I am here thinking of goddesses, only younger 
and more beautiful ones. Particularly when I wander on the strand, 
near those terrible spots where the most beautiful ladies have recently 
been swimming like nymphs. For neither ladies nor gentlemen 
bathe here under cover, but walk about in the open sea. On this 
account the bathing places of the two sexes are far apart, and yet 
not altogether too far, and he who carries a good spy-glass, can every 
where in this world see many marvels. There is a legend of the 
island that a modern Actaeon in this manner once beheld a bathing 
Diana, and wonderful to relate, it was not he, but the husband of 
the beauty who got the horns ! 

The bathing-carriages, those hackney-coaches of the North Sea, 
are here simply shoved to the edge of the water. They are gene- 
rally angular wooden structures, covered with coarse stiff linen- 



— 154 — 

Now, during winter, they are ranged along the conversation hall, 
and without doubt, maintain among themselves as wooden and stiff 
linen-like conversations as the aristocratic world which not long since 
filled their place. 

But when I say the aristocratic world, I do not mean the good citi- 
zens of East Friesland, a race, flat and tame as their own sand-hills, 
who can neither pipe nor sing, and yet possess a talent worth any 
trilling and nonsense — a talent which ennobles man, and lifts him above 
those windy souls of service, who believe themselves alone to be noble. 
I mean the talent for freedom. If the heart beats for liberty, that 
beating is better than any strokes conferring knighthood, as the " free 
Frisians" well know, and they well deserve this, their national epithet. 
With the exception of the ancient days of chieftainship, an aristocracy 
never predominated in East Friesland ; very few noble families have 
ever dwelt there, and the influence of the Hanoverian nobility by 
force and military power as it now spreads over the land, troubles 
many a free Frisian heart. Everywhere a love for their earlier 
Prussian government is manifested. 

Yet I cannot unconditionally agree with the universal German 
complaint of the pride of birth of the Hanoverian nobility. The Ha- 
noverian corps of officers give least occasion for complaints of this 
nature. It is true that, as in Madagascar, only the nobility have the 
right to become butchers, so in days of old, only the nobility in Hanover 
were permitted to become soldiers. But since, in recent times, so 
tnany citizens have distinguished themselves in German regiments, 
and risen to be officers, this evil customary privilege has fallen into 
disuse. Yes, the entire body of the German legions has contributed 
much to soften all prejudices, for these men have travelled afar, and 
out in the world men see many things, especially in England ; and 
they have learned much, and it is a real pleasure to hear them talk 
of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, the Ionian Isles, Ireland, and other dis- 
tant lands where they have fought, and " seen full many towns, and 
learned full many manners," so that we can imagine that we are lis- 
tening to an Odessy, which alas will never find its Homer ! Among 
these officers many independent English customs have also found 
their way, which contrast more strikingly with the old Hanoverian 
manners, than we in the rest of Germany would imagine ; as we are 
in the habit of supposing that England has exercised great influ- 
ence over Hanover. Through all the land of Hanover, nothing is to 
be seen but genealogical trees, to which horses are bound, so that 
for mere trees, the land itself is obscured, and with all its horses, it 



— 155 — 

never advances. No — through this Hanoverian forest of nobility, 
there never penetrated a sun-ray of British freedom, and no tone of 
British freedom was ever perceptible amid the neighing noise of 
Hanoverian steeds. ^ 

The general complaint of Hanoverian pride of birth is best 
founded as regards the hopeful youth of certain families, who either 
rule or believe that they really rule the realm. But these noble 
youths will soon lay aside this haughtiness, or, more correctly speak- 
ing, this naughtiness, when they too have seen a little more of the 
world, or have had the advantage of a better education. It is true 
that they are sent to G-ottingen, but they hang together, talking 
about their horses, dogs, and ancestry : learning but little of modern 
history, and if they happen once iu a while by chance to hear of " it, 
their minds are notwithstanding, stupified by the sight of the 
count's table," which, a true indication of Gottingen, is intended only 
for students of noble birth. Of a truth, if the young Hanoverian 
nobility were better taught, many complaints would be obviated. 
But the young become like the old. The same delusion, as though 
they were the flowers of the earth, and we others but its grass ; the 
same folly, seeking to cover their own worthlessness with their ances- 
tors' merits ; the same ignorance of what there may be problematic 
in these merits, as there are few indeed among them who reflect that 
princes seldom reward their most faithful and virtuous subjects, but 
very often their panders, flatterers and similar favorite rascals with 
ennobling grace. Few indeed among these nobles could say with 
any certainty what their ancestors have done, and they can only show 
their name in Buxnek's Book of Tournaments, — yes, and if they 
could prove that an ancestor was at the taking of Jerusalem, then 
ought they, before availing themselves of the honor, to prove that their 
ancestor fought as a knight should, that his mail suit was not lined 
with fear, and that beneath his red cross beat an honest heart. Were 
there no Iliad, but simply a list of names of those heroes who fought 
before Troy ; and if those family names Were yet among us, how 
wo'ild the descendants of Thersites be puffed up with pride ! As 
for the purity of the blood, I will say nothing ; philosophers and 
famil/ footmen have doubtless some peculiar thoughts on this sub- 
ject. 

My fault-finding, as already hinted, is based upon the lame educa- 
tion of the Hanoverian nobility, and their early impressed delusion 
as to tho importance of certain idle forms. Oh ! how often have 1 
laughed when I remarked the importance attached to these forma ; 



— 156 

as if it were even a difficult matter to learn this representing, this 
presenting, this smiling without saying anything, this saying some- 
thing without thinking, and all these noble arts which the good plain 
citizen stares at, as on wonders from beyond sea, and which after all, 
every French dancing-master has better and more naturally, than the 
German nobleman, to whom they have with weary pains been made 
familiar, in the cub-licking Lutetia, and who, after their importation, 
teaches them with German thoroughness, and German labor, to his 
descendants. This reminds me of the fable of the dancing bear, who, 
having escaped from his master, rejoined his fellow bears in the 
wood, and boasted to them of the difficulty of learning to dance, and 
how he himself excelled in the art, and in fact, the poor brutes who 
beheld his performances, could not withhold their admiration. That 
nation, as Werther calls them, formed the aristocratic world, which 
here at this watering-place, shone on water and land, and they wrre 
altogether excellent, excellent folks, and played their parts well. 

Persons of royal blood were also here, and I must admit that they 
were more modest in their address than the lesser nobility. Whether 
this modesty was in the hearts of these elevated persons, or whether 
they were impelled to it by their position, T will here leave undecided. 
I assert this, however, only of the German mediatised princes. These 
persons have of late suffered great injustice, inasmuch- as they have 
been robbed of a sovereignty, to which they had as good right as the 
greater princes, unless, indeed, any one will assume that that which 
cannot maintain itself by its own power, has no right to exist. But 
for the greatly divided Germany, it was a benefit, that this array of 
sixteen-mo despots were obliged to resign their power. It is terrible 
when we reflect on the number which we poor Germans are obliged 
to feed for although these mediatised princes no longer wield the 
sceptre, they still wield knives, forks, and spoons, and do not eat 
hay, and if they did, hay would still be expensive enough. I imagine 
that we shall eventually be freed by America from this burden of 
princes. For sooner or later the presidents of those free states will 
be metamorphosed into sovereigns, and if they need legitimate prin- 
cesses for wives, they will be glad if we give them our blood-royal 
dames, and if they take six, we will throw in the seventh gratis ; and 
by and by, our princes may be busied with their daughters in turn ; 
for which reason the mediatised princes have acted very shrewdly in 
Retaining at least their right of birth, and value their family trees as 
much as the Arabs value the pedigrees of their horses, and indeed, 
^rith tho same object, as they well know that Germany has been in 



— 157 — 

all agers, the great princely stud from which all the reigning neigh- 
boring families have been supplied with mares and stallions. 

In every watering place it is an old established customary privilege, 
that the departed guests should be sharply criticised by those who 
remain, and as I am here the last in the house, I may presume to 
exercise that right to its fullest extent. 

And it is now so lonely in the island, that I seem to myself like 
Napoleon on St, Helena, Only that I have here found something 
entertaining, which he wanted. For it is with the great Emperor 
himself with whom I am now busied. A young Englishman recently 
presented me with Maitland's book, published not long since, in 
which the mariner sets forth the way and manner in which Napoleon 
gave himself up to him, and deceived himself on the Bellerophon, till 
he, by command of the British ministry was brought on board the 
Northumberland. From this book it appears clear as day, that the 
Emperor, in a spirit of romantic confidence in British magnanimity, 
and to finally give peace to the world, went to the English more as a 
guest than as a prisoner. It was an error which no other man would 
have fallen into, and least of all, a Wellington. But history will 
declare that this error was so beautiful, so elevated, so sublime, that 
it required more true greatness of soul than we, the rest of the world, 
can elevate ourselves to in our greatest deeds. 

The cause which has induced Captain Maitland to publish this 
book, appears to be no other than the moral need of purification, 
which every honorable man experiences who has been entangled by 
bad fortune in a piece of business of a doubtful complexion. The 
book itself is an invaulable contribution to the history of the imprison- 
ment of Napoleon, as it forms the last portion of his life, singularly 
solves all the enigmas of the earlier parts, and amazes, reconciles, and 
purifies the mind, as the last act of a genuine tragedy should. The cha- 
racteristic differences of the four principal writers who have informed 
us as to his captivity, and particularly as to his manner and method 
of regarding things, is not distinctly seen, save by their comparison. 

Maitland, the stern, cold, English sailor, describes events without 
prejudice, and as accurately as though they were maritime occurrences 
to be entered in a log-book. Las Casas, like an enthusiastic cham- 
berlain, lies, as he writes, in every line, at the feet of his Emperor ; 
not like a Russian slave, but like a free Frenchman, who involuntarily 
bows the knee to unheard of heroic greatness and to the dignity of 
rmown. O'Meara, the physician, though born in Ireland, is still 
altogether a Britain, and as such was once an enemy of the Emperor. 

14 



— 158 — 

But now, recognising the majestic rights of adversity, he writes 
boldly, without ornament, and conscientiously : — almost in a lapidary 
style, while we recognise not so much a style as a stiletto in the 
pointed, striking manner of writing of the Italian Autommaechi, who 
is altogether mentally intoxicated with the vindictiveness and poetry 
of his land. 

Both races, French and English, gave from either side a man of 
ordinary powers of mind, uninfluenced by the powers that be, and 
this jury has judged the Emperor, and sentenced him to live eternally 
— an object of wonder and of commiseration. 

There are many great men who have already walked in this world. 
Here and there we see the gleaming marks of their footsteps, and in 
holy hours they sweep like cloudy forms before our souls ; but an 
equally great man sees his predecessors far more significantly. From 
a single spark of the traces of their earthly glory, he recognises their 
most secret act, from a single word left behind, he penetrates every 
fold of their hearts, and thus nra mystical brotherhood live the great 
men of all times. Across long centuries they bow to each other, and 
gaze on each other with significant glances, and their eyes meet over 
the graves of buried races whom they have thrust aside between, and 
they understand and love each other. But we little ones, who may 
not have such intimate intercourse with the great ones of the past, 
of whom we but seldom see the traces and cloudy forms, it is of the 
highest importance to learn so much of these great men, that it will 
be easy for us to take them distinct, as in life, into our own souls, and 
thereby enlarge mir minds. Such a man is Napoleon Bonapaete. 
We know more of his life and deeds than of the other great ones of 
this world, and aay by day we learn still more and more. We see 
the buried form divine, slowly dug forth, and with every spade full of 
earth which is removed, increases our joyous wonder at the symmetry 
and splendor of the noble figure which is revealed, and the spiritual 
lightnings with which foes would shatter the great statue, serve but 
to light rUup more gloriously. Such is the case with the assertions 
of M'me de Stael, who, with all her bitterness, says nothing more 
than that the Emperor was not a man like other men, and that his 
soul could be measured with no measure known to us. 

It is to such a spirit that Kant alludes, when he says, that we can 
think to ourselves an understanding, which, because it is not dis- 
cursive like our own, but intuitive, goes from the synthetic universal, 
of the observation of the whole, as such, to the particular — that is to 
say, from the whole to a part. Yes — Napoleon's spirit saw through 






— 159 — 

that which we learn by weary analytical reflection, and long deduc- 
tion of consequences, and comprehended it in one and the same 
moment. Thence came his talent to understand his age, to cajole 
its spirit into never abusing him, and being ever profitable to 
him. 

But as this spirit of the age is not only revolutionary, but is formed 
by the antagonism of both sides, the revolutionary and the counter- 
revolutionary, so did Napoleon act not according to either alone, but 
according to the spirit of both principles,, both efforts, which found in 
him their union, and he accordingly always acted naturally, simply 
and greatly ; never convulsively and harshly — ever composed and 
calm. Therefore he never intrigued in details, and his striking effects 
were ever brought about by his ability to comprehend and to bend 
the masses to his will. Little analytical souls incline to entangled, 
wearisome intrigues, while, on the contrary, synthetic intuitive spirits 
understand in a wondrously genial manner, so to avail themselves of 
the means which are afforded them by the present, as quickly to turn 
them to their own advantage. The former often founder, because no 
mortal wisdom can foresee all the events of life, and life's relations 
are never long permanent ; the latter, on the contrary, the intuitive 
men, succeed most easily in their designs, as they only require an 
accurate computation of that which is at hand, and act so quickly, 
that their calculations are not miscarried by any ordinary agitation, 
or by any sudden unforeseen changes. 

It is a fortunate coincidence that Napoleon lived just in an age 
which had a remarkable inclination for history, for research, and for 
publication. Owing to this cause, thanks to the memoirs of cotem- 
poraries, but few particulars of Napoleon's life have been withheld 
from us, and the number of histories which represent him as more or 
less allied to the rest of the world, increase every day. On this 
account the announcement of such a work by Scott awakens the 
most anxious anticipation. 

All those who honor the genius of Scott must tremble for him, for 
such a book may easily prove to be the Moscow of a reputation which 
he has won with weary labor by an array of historical romances, 
which, more by their subject than by their poetic power, have moved 
every heart in Europe. This theme is, however, not merely an elegiac 
Vament over Scotland's legendary glory, which has been little by little 
banished by foreign manners, rule, and modes of thought, but the 
greatest suffering for the loss of those national peculiarities which 
perish in the universality of modern civilization — a grief which now 



-• 160 -- 

causes the hearts of every nation to throb. For national memories 
lie deeper in man's heart than we generally imagine. Let any one 
attempt to bury the ancient forms, and overnight the old love blooms 
anew with its flowers. This is not a mere figure of speech, but a 
fact, for when Bullook, a few years ago, dug up in Mexico an old 
heathen stone image, he found, next morning, that during the night 
it had been crowned with flowers ; although Spain had destroyed the 
old Mexican faith with fire and sword, and though the souls of the 
natives had been for three centuries digged about and ploughed, and 
sowed with Christianity, And such flowers as these bloom in Walter 
Scott's poems. These poems themselves awaken the old feeling, and 
as once in Grenada men and women ran with the wail of desperation 
from their houses, when the song of the departure of the Moorish 
king rang in the streets, so that it was prohibited, on pain of death, 
to sing it, so hath the tone which rings through Scott's romance 
thrilled with pain a whole world. This tone re-echoes in the hearts 
of our nobles, who see their castles and armorial bearings in ruins ; 
it rings again in the hearts of our burghers, who have been crowded 
from the comfortable narrow way of their ancestors by wide-spread- 
ing, uncongenial modern fashion ; in Catholic cathedrals, whence 
faith has fled ; in Rabbinic synagogues, from which even the faith- 
ful flee. It sounds over the whole world, even into the Banian groves 
of Hindostan, where the sighing Brahmin sees before him the destruc- 
tion of his gods, the demolition of their primeval cosmogony, and the 
entire victory of the Briton. 

But his tone — the mightiest which the Scottish bard can strike 
upon his giant harp — accords not with the imperial song of Napo- 
leon, the new man — the man of modern times — the man in whom 
this new age mirrors itself so gloriously, that we thereby are well 
nigh dazzled, and never think meanwhile of the vanished Past, nor 
of its faded splendor. It may well be pre-supposed that Scott, 
according to his predilections, will seize upon the stable element 
already hinted at, the counter-revolutionary side of the character of 
Napoleon, while, on the contrary, other writers will recognize in him 
the revolutionary principle. It is from this last side that Byron 
would have described him — Byron, who forms in every respect an 
antithesis to Scott, and who, instead of lamenting like him the de- 
struction of old forms, even feels himself vexed and bounded by those 
which remain, and would fain annihilate them with revolutionary 
laughter and with gnashing of teeth. In this rage he destroys the 
holiest flowers of life with his melodious poison, and like a mad harle- 



— 161 — 

quin, strikes a dagger into his own heart, to mockingly sprinkle with 
the jetting black blood the ladies and gentlemen around. 

I truly realize at this instant that I am no worshipper, or at least 
no bigotted admirer of Byeon. My blood is not so spleutically 
black, my bitterness comes only from the gall-apples of my ink, 
and if there be poison in me it is only an anti-poison, for those 
snakes which lurk so threateningly amid the shelter of old cathedrals 
and castles. Of all great writers Byeon is just the one whose 
writings excite in me the least passion, while Scott, on the contrary, 
in his every book, gladdens, tranquillizes, and strengthens my heart. 
Even his imitators please me, as in such instances as Willibald 
Alexis, Beonikowski, and Coopee, the first of whom, in the ironic 
" Walladmoor," approaches nearest his pattern, and has shown in a 
later work such a wealth of form and of spirit, that he is fully capable 
of setting before our souls with a poetic originality well worthy of 
Scott, a series of historical novels. 

But no true genius follows paths indicated to him, these lie 
beyond all critical computation, so that it may be allowed to pass as 
a harmless play of thought, if I may express my anticipatory judg- 
ment over Waltee Scott's History of Napoleon. Anticipatory 
judgment* is here the most comprehensive expression. Only one 
thing can be said with certainty, which is that the book will be read 
from its uprising even unto the down-setting thereof, and we Ger- 
mans will translate it. 

We have also translated Segue Is it not a pretty epic poem ? 
We Germans also write epic poems, but their heroes only exist in 
our own heads. The heroes of the French epos, on the contrary, are 
real heroes, who have performed more doughty- deeds and suffered 
far greater woes than we in our garret rooms ever dreamed of. And 
yet we have much imagination, and the French but little. , Perhaps 
on this account the Loed helped them out in another manner, for 
they only need truly relate what has happened to them during the 
last thirty years to have such a literature of experience as no -nation 
and no age ever yet brought forth. Those memoirs of statesmen, 
soldiers, and noble ladies which appear daily in France, form a cycle 
of legends in which posterity will find material enough for thought 
and song — a cycle in whose centre the life of the great Emperor rises 
like a giant tree. Segue's History of the Russian Campaign is a 
song, a French song of the people, which belongs to this legend cycle 
and which in its tone and matter, is, and will remain, like the epic 

" ForurtheiV'—prcejudicium— prejudice— fore-judgment — Note by Translator. 

14* 



— 162 — 

poetry of all ages. A heroic poem which from the magic words 
" freedom and equality" has shot up from the soil of France, and as 
in a triumphal procession, intoxicated with glory and led by the 
Goddess Fame herself, has swept over, terrified and glorified the 
world. And now at last it dances clattering sword-dances on the 
ice fields of the North, until they break in, and the children of fire 
and of freedom perish by cold and by the Slaves. 

Such a description of the destruction of a heroic world is the key 
note and material of the epic poems of all races. On the rocks of 
Ellora and other Indian grotto-temples, there remain such epic catas- 
trophes, engraved in giant hieroglyphics, the key to which must be 
sought in the Mahabarata. The North too in words not less rock- 
like, has narrated this twilight of the gods in its Edda, the Nibelungen 
sings the same tragic destruction, and has in its conclusion a striking 
similarity with Segue's description of the burning of Moscow. The 
Roland's Song of the battle of Eoncesvalles, which though its words 
have perished still exists as a legend, and which has recently been 
raised again to life by Immeemann, one of the greatest poets of the 
Father Land, is also the same old song of woe. Even the song of Troy 
gives most gloriously the old theme, and yet it is not grander or more 
agonizing than that French song of the people in which Segue has 
sung the downfall of his hero world. Yes, this is a true epos, the 
heroic youth of France is the beautiful hero who early perishes as we 
have already seen in the deaths of Balder, Siegfried, Roland, and 
Achilles, who also perished by ill-fortune and treachery ; and those 
heroes whom we once admired in the Iliad we find again in the song of 
Segue. We see them counselling, quarrelling, and fighting, as once 
of old before the Skaisch gate. If the court of the King of Naples 
is somewhat too variedly modern, still his courage in battle and his 
pride are greater than those of Pelides ; a Hector in mildness, and 
bravery is before us in " Peince Eugene, the knight so noble." Net 
battles like an Ajax, Beethiee is a Nestor without wisdom ; Davoust, 
DaelvCaulincouet, and others, possess the souls of Menelaus, of 
Odysseus, of Diomed — only the Emperor alone has not his like — in his 
head is the Olympus of the poem, and if I compare him in his heroic 
apparition to Agamemnon, I do it because a tragic end awaited him 
with his lordly comrades in arms, and because his Orestes yet lives. 

There is a tone in Segue's epos like that in Scott's poems which 
moves our hearts. But this tone does not revive our love for the 
long-vanished legions of olden time. It is a tone which brings to us 
the present, and a tone which inspires us with its spirit. 



— 163 — 

But we Germans are genuine Peter Schlemihls ! In later times 
we have seen much and suffered much — for example, having soldiers 
quartered on us, and pride from our nobility ; and we have given away 
our best blood, for example, to England, which has still a considerable 
annual sum to pay for shot-off arms and legs, to their former owners, 
and we have done so many great things on a small scale, that if they 
were reckoned up together, they would result in the grandest deeds 
imaginable, for instance, in the Tyrol, and we have lost much, for 
instance, our " greater shadow," the title of the holy darling Roman, 
empire — and still, with all our losses, sacrifices, self-denials, misfor- 
fortunes and great deeds, our literature has not gained one such 
monument of renown, as rise daily among our neighbors, like immor- 
tal trophies. Our Leipzig Fairs have profitted but little by the 
oattle of Leipzig. A native of Gotha, intends, as I hear, to sing 
them successively in epic form, but as he has not as yet determined 
whether he belongs to the one hundred thousand souls of Hildburg- 
hausen, or to the one hundred and fifty thousand of Meiningen, or to 
the one hundred and sixty thousand of Altenburg, he cannot as yet 
begin his epos, and must accordingly begin with, " Sing, immortal souls, 
Hildburghausian souls, Meiningian or even Altenburgian souls, sing, 
all the same, sing the deliverance of the sinful Germans !" This soul- 
murderer, and his fearful ruggedness, allows no proud thought, and 
still less, a proud word to manifest itself, our brighest deeds become 
ridiculous by a stupid result ; and while we gloomily wrap ourselves 
in the purple mantle of German heroic blood, there comes a political 
waggish knave and puts his cap and bells on our head. 

Nay, we must even compare the literati on the other side of the 
Rhine, and of the canal, with our bagatelle-literature, to comprehend 
the emptiness and insignificance of our bagatelle-life. And as I 
intend to subsequently extend my observations over this theme of 
German literature-miserere, I here offer a merrier compensation by 
the intercalation of the following Xenia, which have flown from the 
pen of Immermann, my lofty colleague. Those of congenial disposi- 
tions will, without doubt, thank me for communicating these verses, 
and with a few exceptions, which I have indicated with stars, I will- 
ingly admit that they exnress my own views. 



— 164 — 



THE POETIC MAN OF LETTERS. 

Cease thy laughing, cease thy weeping, let the truth be plainly said, 
When Hans Sachs first saw the daylight, Weckherlin just then 
was dead. 



" All mankind at length must perish," quoth the dwarf with won- 
drous spirit, 
Ancient youth, — the news you tell us hath not novelty for merit. 



In forgotten old black letter, still his author-boots he's steeping, 
And he eats poetic onions to inspire a livelier weeping. 



*Spare old Luther, Frank, I pray you, in the comments which you 

utter, 
He's a fish which pleases better, plain, than with thy melted butter. 



THE DRAMATIST. 

1. 

*" To revenge me on the public, tragedies 1 11 write no longer ?" 
Only keep thy word, and then we'll let tnee curse us more and 
stronger. 

2. 

In a cavalry-lieutenant, stinging spur-like verse we pardon ; 
For he orders phrase and feelings, like recruits whom drills must 
harden. 

3. 
'Were Melpomene a maiden, tender, loving as a child, 
I would bid her marry this one — he's so trim, so neat and mild. 

4. 
For the sins on Earth committed, goes the soul of Kotzebue. 
In the body of this monster, stockingless, without a shoe. 



Thus to honor comes the doctrine which the earliest ages give, 
That the souls of the departed, afterwards in beasts must live. 



— 165 — ' 

9 ORIENTAL POETS. 

At old Saadi's imitators tout le monde just n * w are wondering : — 
Seems to me the same old story, if we East or West go blundering. 

Once there sang in summer moonlight, philomel sen nightingale, 
Now the bulbul pipes unto us, still it seems the same old tale. 

Of the rat-catcher of Hameln, ancient poet, — you remind me ; 
Whistling eastwards, while the little singers follow close behind thee. 

India's holy cows they honor for a reason past all doubt, 
For ere long in every cow-stall they will find Olympus out. 

Too much fruit they ate in Shiraz, where they held* their thievish revels, 
In " Gazelles" they cast it up now — wretched Oriental devils. 

BELL-TONES. 

See the plump old pastor yonder at his door, with pride elate, 
Loudly singing, that the people may adore him dressed in state. 

And they flock to gaze upon him, both the blind men and the lame, 
Cramped and pectoral sufferers — with them many asJrysteric dame. 

Simple cerate healeth nothing, neither doth it hurt a wound, 
Therefore friends, in every book-shop simple cerate may be found. 

If the matter thus progresses, till they every priest adore 

To old Mother Church's bosom I'll go creeping back once more. 

There a single Pope they honor and adore a prcesens numen, 
Here each one ordained as lumen, elevates himself to numen. 

*ORBIS PICTUS. 

If the mob who spoil the world, had but one neck and here would 

show it ! 
Oh, ye Gods, a single neck of wretched actors, priests and poets ! 

In the church to look at faxces oft I linger of a morning, 
" In. the theatre sit at evening, from the sermon taking warning. 

E'en the Lord to me oft loses much in influence and vigor, 

For so many thousand people carve him in their own base figure. 

Public — when I please ye, then I think myself a wretched weaver, 
But when I can really vex you, then it strengthens up my liver. 



— 166 — 

"How lie masters all the language!" — yes and *nakes ns die of 

laughter, 
How he jumps and makes his captive crazily come jumping after! 

Much <jan I endure that's vexing — one thing makes me sick and 

haggard, 
When I see a nervous weakling try to play the genial blackguard 



*Once I own that thou didst please me, fair Lucinda's favors winning, 
Out upon thy brazen courtship ! now with Mary thoud'st be sinning ' 

First in England, then mid Spaniards — then where Brahma's dark- 
ness scatters, 
Everywhere the same old story — German coat and shoes in tatters 



When the ladies write, for ever in their private pains they're dealing, 
Fausses couches and damaged virtue — oh, such open hearts revealing ! 

Let the ladies write — they please me — in one thing they beat us 

hollow, 
When a dame takes " pen in hand," we're sure no bad results can 

follow. 



Literature will soon resemble parties at a tea or christening, 
Naught but lady-gossips prating, while the little boys are listening. 

Where I a G-hexgis-Khax, oh, China, long in dust had'st thou been 

lying, 
From thy cursed tea came parties — and of them I'm slowly dying. 

All now settles down in silence, o'er the Mightiest peace is flowing, 
Calmly in his ledger entering what the early age is owing. 

Yonder town is full of statues, pictures, verses, music's din : 

At the door stands Merry Andrew with his trump and cries come in. 



"Why, these verses ring most vilely, without men; . o, feet or form ! 
But should literary Pandours wear a royal uniform ? 



Say how can you use such phrases — such expression without blushing, 
We must learn to use our elbows, when through market crowds we're 
pushing. 

But of old thou oft hast written rhymes both truly good and great ! 
He who mingles with the vulgar must expect a vulgar fate. 



IDEAS. 

BOOK LE GKAND, 



(1826.) 



The mighty race of Oerindur, 
The pillar of our throne, 
Though Nature perish, will endure, 
For ever and alone. — Mullner. 



CHAPTER I. 

She was worthy of love, and he loved her. He, however, was not loveahle, and she did 
not love him. — Old Play. • 

Madame, are you familiar with that old play ? It is an altogether 
extraordinary performance — only a little too melancholy. I once 
played the leading part in it myself, so that all the ladies wept save 
one, who did not shed so much as a single tear, and in that, consisted 
the whole point of the play — the real catastrophe. 

Oh, that single tear ! it still torments me in my reveries. When 
the Devil desires to ruin my soul, he hums in my ear a ballad -of that 
tear, which ne'er was wept, a deadly song with a more deadly tune — 
ah ! such a tune is only heard in hell ! 

****** 

You can readily form an idea Madame of what life is like, in 
Heaven — the more readily, as you are married. There people amuse 
themselves altogether superbly, every sort of entertainment is pro- 
vided, and one lives in nothing but desire and its gratification, or as 
the saying is, "like the Lord in France." There they live from 
morning to night, and the cookery is as good as Jagor's, roast geese 
fly around with gravy-boats in their bills, and feel flattered if any 
one condescends to eat them ; tarts gleaming with butter grow wild 
like sun-flowers, everywhere there are rivulets of bouillon and cham- 
pagne, everywhere trees on which clean napkins flutter wild in the 
wind, and you eat and wipe your lips and eat again without injury to 
the health. There too, you sing psalms, or flirt and joke with the 

(167) 



— 168 — 

dear delicate little angels, or take a walk on the green Hallelujah- 
Meadow, and your white flowing garments fit so comfortably, and 
nothing disturbs your feeling of perfect happiness — no pain, no vexa- 
tion. Nay — when one accidentally treads on another's corns and 
exclaim, "excusez!" the one trodden on smiles as if glorified, and 
insists " Thy foot, brother, did not hurt in the least, quite au con- 
traire — it only causes a deeper thrill of Heavenly rapture to shoot 
through my heart J" 

But of Hell, Madame, you have not the faintest idea. Of all the 
devils in existence, you have probably made the acquaintance only of 
Amor, the nice little Croupier of Hell, who is the smallest Beelze- 
"bub" of them all. And you know him only from Don Juan, and 
doubtless think that for such a betrayer of female innocence Hell can 
never be made hot enough, though our praiseworthy theatre directors 
shower down upon him as much flame, fiery rain, squibs and colo- 
phonium as any Christian could desire to have emptied into Hell 
itself. 

However, things in Hell look much worse than our theatre directors 
imagine ; — if they did know what is going on there, they would 
never permit such stuff to be played as they do. For in Hell it is 
infernally hot, and when I was there, in the dog-days, it was past 
endurance. Madame — you can have no idea of Hell ! We have very 
few official returns from that place. Still it is rank calumny to say 
that down there all the poor souls are compelled to read all day long 
all the dull sermons which were ever printed on earth. Bad as Hell 
is, it has not quite come to that, — Satan will never invent such refine- 
ments of torture. On the other hand, Dante's description is too 
mild — I may say, on the whole, too poetic. Hell appeared to me 
like a great town-kitchen, with an endlessly long stove, on which were 
placed three rows of iron pots, and in these sat the damned, and were 
cooked. In one row were placed Christian sinners, and, incredible 
as it may seem, their number was anything but small, and the devils 
poked the fire up under them with especial good will. In the next 
row were Jews, who continually screamed and cried, and were occa- 
sionally mocked by the fiend?, which sometimes seemed odd enough — 
as for instance, when a fat, wheezy old pawnbroker complained of 
the heat, and a little devil poured several buckets of cold water on 
his head, that he might realize what a refreshing benefit baptism was. 
In the third row sat the heathen, who, like the Jews, could take no 
part in salvation, and must burn forever. I heard one of the latter, 
as a square-built, burly devil put fresh coals under his kettle, cry out 



— 169 — 

from his pot — " Spare me ! I was once Socrates, the wisest of mor- 
tals — I taught Truth and Justice, and sacrificed my life for Virtue." 
But the clumsy, stupid devil went on with his work, and grumbled — - 
" Oh, shut up, there ! All heathens must burn, and we can't make 
an exception for the sake of a single man." I assure you, Madame, 
the heat was terrible, with such a screaming, sighing, groaning, croak- 
ing, crying, quacking, cracking, growling, grunting, yelling, squeal- 
ing, wailing, trilling — and through all this terrible turmoil there rang 
distinctly the fatal melody of the Song of the Unwept Tear. 



CHAPTER II. 



" She was worthy of hia love, and he loved her. He, however, was not loveable, and 
she did not love him." 

Madame ! that old play is a tragedy, though the hero in it is 
neither killed nor commits suicide. The eyes of the heroine are 
beautiful — very beautiful: — Madame, do you scent the perfume of 
violets ? — very beautiful, and yet so piercing that they struck like 
poignards of glass through my heart and probably came out through 
my back — and yet I was not killed by those treacherous, murderous 
eyes. The voice of the heroine was also sweet — Madame, was it a 
nightingale you heard sing just as I spoke ? — a soft, silken voice, a 
sweet web of the sunniest tones, and my soul was entangled in it and 
choked and tormented itself. I myself— it is the Count of Ganges 
who now speaks, and as the story goes on, in Yenice — I myself soon 
had enough of those tortures, and had thoughts of putting an end to 
the play in the first act, and of shooting myself through the head, 
foolscap and all. Therefore I went to a fancy store in the Yia 
Burstah, where I saw a pair cf beautiful pistols in a case — I 
remember them perfectly well — near them stood many ornamental 
articles of mother-of-pearl and gold, steel hearts on gilt chains, por- 
celain cups with delicate devices, and snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, 
such as the divine history of Susannah, the Swan Song of Leda, the 
Rape of the Sabines, Lucretia, a fat, virtuous creature, with naked 
bosom, in which she was lazily sticking a dagger; the late Bethmann, 
la belle Ferroniere — all enrapturing faces— but I bought the pistols 
without much ado, and then I bought balls, then powder, and then I 
went to the restaurant of Signor Somebody, and ordered oysters and 
a glass of Hock. 

15 



— 170 — 

I could eat nothing, and still less could I drink. The warm tears 
fell in the glass, and in that glass I saw my dear home, the blue, holy 
Ganges, the ever gleaming Himalaya, the giant banyan woods, amid 
whose broad arcades calmly wandered wise elephants and white- 
robed pilgrims, strange dream-like flowers gazed on me with meaning 
glance, wondrous golden birds sang softly, flashing sun-rays and the 
droll, silly chatter of monkies pleasantly mocked me, from far pagodas 
sounded the pious prayers of priests, and amid them rang the melt- 
ing, wailing voice of the Sultaness of Delhi — she ran wildly around 
in her carpetted chamber, she tore her silver veil, she struck with her 
peacock fan the black slave to the ground, she wept, she raged, she 
cried. — I could not hear what she said, the restaurant of Signor 
Somebody is three thousand miles distant from the Harem of Delhi, 
besides the fair Sultaness had been dead three thousand years — 
and I quickly drank up the wine, the clear, joy-giving wine, and yet 

my soul grew darker and sadder — I was condemned to death. 
*- k * * * * * 

As I left the restaurant, I heard the "bell of poor sinners" ring, a 
crowd of people swept by me ; but I placed myself at the corner of 
the Strada San Giovanni, and recited the followiug monologue : 

Tn ancient tales they tell of gol.den castles, 
Where harps are sounding, lovely ladies dance, 
And trim attendants serve, and jessamine, 
Myrtle and roses spread their soft perfume — ■ 
And yet a single word of sad enchantment, 
Sweeps all the glory of the scene to naught, 
And there remains but ruins old and gray, 
And screaming birds of night and foul morass, — 
E'en so have I with a short single word, 
Enchanted Nature's blooming loveliness. 
There lies she nOw, lifeless and cold and pale, 
E'en like a monarch's corse laid out in state, 
The royal deathly cheeks fresh stained with rouge, 
And in his hand the kingly sceptre laid, 
Yet still his lips are yellow and most changed, 
For they forget to dye them, as they should, 
And mice are jumping o'er the monarch's nose, 
And mock the golden sceptre in his grasp. 

It is an universal regulation, Madame, that every one should 
deliver a soliloquy before shooting himself. Most men, on such occa- 



— 171 — 

Bions, use Hamlet's " To be, or not to be." It is an excellent pas- 
sage, and I world gladly have quoted it — but charity begins at 
home, and when a man has written tragedies himself, in which such 
farewell-to-life speeches occur, as for instance, in my immortal 
" Almansor," it is very natural that one should prefer his own words 
even to Shakspeare's. At any rate the delivery of such speeches 
is an excellent custom ; for thereby one gains at leasta little time. 
And as it came to pass that I remained a long time standing on the 
the corner of the Strada San Giovanni — and as I stood there like a 
condemned criminal awaiting death, I raised my eyes, and suddenly 
beheld her. 

She wore her blue silk dress and rose-red bonnet, and her eyes 
beamed on me so mild, so death-eonqueringly, so life-givingly. — 
Madame, you well know, that when the vestals in ancient Rome, met 
on their way a malefactor condemned to death, they had the right to 
pardon him, and the poor rogue lived. — With a single glance she 
saved my life, and I stood before her revived, and dazzled by the 
sunny gleaming of her beauty, and she passed on — and left me alive. 



CHAPTER III. 



And she saved my life, and I live, and that is the main point. 

Others may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having their 
lady-love adorn their graves with garlands and water them with the 

tears of true love, Oh, women ! hate me, laugh at me, mitten 

me ! — but let me live ! Life is all too wondrous sweet, and the world 
is so beautifully bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated 
divinity who has taken French leave of the tippling multitude of im- 
mortals, and has laid down to sleep in a solitary star, and knows not 
himself that he also creates all that which he dreams- — and the dream 
images form themselves often so fantastically wildly, and often so 
harmoniously and reasonably. The Iliad. Plato, the battle of Mara- 
thon, Moses, the Medician Venus, the Cathedral of Strasburg, the 
French Revolution, Hegel and steamboats, &c, &c, are other good 
thoughts in this divine dream — but it will not last long, and the 

immortal one awakes and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles and 

our world has run to nothing — yes, has never been. 

No matter ! I live. If I am but the shadowy image in a dream, 
still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of Death. 



— 172 — 

Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of evils. Berlin 
lieutenants of the guard may sneer and call it cowardice, because the 
Prince of Homburg shudders when he beholds his open grave. 
Henry Kleist had, however, as much courage as his high breasted, 
tightly laced colleagues, and has, alas ! proved it. But all great, 
powerful souls love life. Goethe's Egmont does not cheerfully take 
leave " of the cheerful wontedness of being and action." Immerman's 
Edwin clings to life "like a child upon the mother's breast." And 
though he finds it hard to live by stranger mercy, he still begs for 
mercy : " For life and breath is still the best of boons." 

When Odysseus in the lower world regards Achilles as the leader 
of dead heroes, and extols his renown among the living, and his glory 
even among the dead, the latter replies : 

No more discourse of death, consolingly, noble Odysseus ! 
Eather would I in the field as daily laborer be toiling, 
Slave to the meanest of men, a pauper and lacking possessions, 
Than mid the infinite host of long vanished mortals be ruler. 

Yes, when Major Duvent challenged the great Israel Lyon to 
fight with pistols and said to him : " If you do not meet me, Mr. 
Lyon, you are a dog ;" the latter replied ' I would rather be a live 
dog than a dead lion !" — and was right. I have fought often enough 
Madame to dare to say this — God be praised ! I live ! Red life boils 
in my veins, earth yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I 
embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every 
woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her 
countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more 
than others with their every limb through all their lives. Every 
instant is to me an eternity, I do not measure time with the ell of 
Brabant or of Hamburg, and I need no priest to promise me a second 
life, for I can live enough in this life, when I live backwards in the 
life of those who have gone before me, and win myself an eternity in 
the realm of the past. 

And I live ! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, 
and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I 
hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken 
Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, 
her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun — the 
sun moves far too slowly, I would fain lash on bis steeds that they 
might advance more rapidly. — But when he sinks hissing in the sea, 
and the night rises with her great eyes, oh ! then true pleasure first 



— 173 — 

thrills through me like a new life, the evening breezes lie like flattering 
maidens on my wild heart, and the stars wink to me, and I rise and 
sweep over the little earth and the little thoughts of mankind.* 



CHAPTER IV. 

But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched in 
my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes 
will whiten my locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my 
friends will lie in their lonely grave, and I alone will remain like a 
solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper. A new race will have sprung 
up with new desires and new ideas, full of wonder I hear new names 
and listen to new songs, for the old names are forgotten and I myself 
am forgotten, perhaps honored by but few, scorned by many and loved 
by none ! And then the rosy cheeked boys will spring around me 
and place the old harp in my trembling hand, and say, laughing, 
"Thou indolent grey-headed old man, sing us again songs of the 
dreams of thy youth." 

* The reader has already been forewarned in the preface that Heine's writings aboand 
in the harshest, at times most repulsive, expressions of his views. In these chapters 
we see him under two influences— that of Hegelian atheism and Hellenic sensuousnees, 
or of a purely material Greek nature-worship. In one of his latest poems, a translation 
from which appeared in the London Athenaeum, March 31, 1855, we find evidences of a 
fearful though occasional reaction from this early intoxication: 
" How wearily time crawls along, — 

That hideous snail that hastens not, — 
While I, without the power to move, 
Am ever fixed to one dull spot. 
" Upon my dreary chamber wall 

No gleam of sunshine can I trace 
I know that only for the grave, 
Shall I exchange this hopeless place. 

" Perhaps already I am dead, 

And these perhaps are phantoms vain ; — 
These motley phantasies that pass 

At night through my disordered brain. 

"Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, 
Old faded gods, this brain is full; 
Who, for their most unholy rites, 
Have chosen a dead poet's skull. 

"And charming frightful orgies hold. — 
The mad-cap phantoms ! — all the night, 
That in the morning this dead hand 
About their revelries may write." 

[Note by Translator.'] 

15* 



— 174 — 

Then I will grasp the harp and my old joys and sorrows will awake, 
tears will again gleam on my pale cheeks. Spring will bloom once 
more in my breast, sweet tones of woe will tremble on the harp-strings. 
I will see once more the bine flood and the marble palaces and the 
lovely faces of ladies and young girls — and 1 will sing a song of the 
flowers of Brenta. 

It will be my last song, the stars will gaze on me as in the nights of 
my youth, the loving moonlight will once more kiss my cheeks, the 
spirit chorus of nightingales long dead will sound from afar, my eyes 
intoxicated with sleep will softly close, my soul will re-echo with the 
notes of my harp — perfume breathes from the flowers of the Brenta. 

A tree will shadow my grave. I would gladly have it a palm, but 
that tree will not grow in the North. It will be a linden, and of a 
summer evening lovers will sit there caressing ; the green finches 
will be listening silently, and my linden will rustle protectingly over 
the heads of the happy ones who will be so happy that they will have 
no time to read what is written on the white tomb-stone. " But when 
at a later day, the lover has lost his love, then he will come again to 
the well-known linden, and sigh, and weep, and gaze long and oft upon 
the stone until he reads the inscription : " He loved the flowers of the 
Brenta.' 7 



CHAPTER V. 



Madaste ! I have been telling you lies. I am not the Count of the 
Ganges. Never in my life did I see the holy stream, nor the lotus 
flowers, which are mirrored in its sacred waves. Never did I lie 
dreaming under Indian palms, nor in prayer before the Diamond Deity 
Juggernaut, who with his diamonds might have easily aided me out 
of my difficulties. I have no more been in Calcutta than the turkey, 
of which I ate yesterday at dinner, had ever been in the realms 
of the Grand Turk. Yet my ancestors came from Hindostan, and 
therefore I feel so much at my ease in the great forest of song 
of Yalmiki. The heroic sorrows of the divine Bamo, move my heart 
like familiar griefs, from the flower lays of Kalidasa the sweetest 
memories bloom, and when a few years ago, a gentle lady in Berlin 
showed me the beautiful pictures, which her father, who had been 
Governor-General in India, had brought from thence, the delicately 
painted, holy, calm faces, seemed as familiar to me as though I were 
gazing at my own family gallery. 



— 175 — 

Franz J>opp — Madame you have of course read his Nalus and his 
System of Conjugations — gave me much information relative to my 
ancestry, and I now know with certainty that I am descended from 
Brahma s head, and not from his corns. I have also good reason to 
believe that the entire Maliabarata with its two hundred thousand 
verses is merely an allegorical love-letter, which my first fore-father 
wrote to my first fore-mother. Oh ! they loved dearly, their souls 
kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss. 

An enchanted nightingale sits on a red coral bough in the silent 
sea, and sings a song of the love of my ancestors, earnestly gaze the 
pearls from their shelly cells, the wondrous water-flowers tremble 
with sad longing, the cunning-quaint sea-snails bearing on their backs 
many-coloured porcelain towers come creeping onwards, the ocean- 
roses blush with shame, the yellow, sharp-pointed starfish, and the 
thousand hued glassy jelly-fish quiver and stretch, and all swarm and 
crowd and listen. 

Unfortunately, Madame, this nightingale song is far too long to 
admit of translation here ; it is as long as the world itself — even its 
mere dedication to Anangas, the God of Love, is as long as all Sir 
Walter Scott's novels together, and there is a passage referring to it 
:u Aristophanes, which in German* reads thus : 

" Tiotio, tiotio, tiotinx, 
Totototo, totototo, tototinx." 

[Voss's Translation.'] 

No, I was not born in India. I first beheld the light of the world 
on the shores of that beautiful stream, in whose green hills folly 
grows and is plucked in Autumn, laid away in cellars, poured into 
barrels, and exported to foreign lands. 

In fact, only yesterday I heard some one speaking a piece of 

folly which, in the year 1818, was imprisoned in a bunch of grapes, 
which I myself then saw growing on the Johannisburg. — But much 
folly is also consumed at home, and men are the same there as every- 
where : they are born, eat, drink, sleep, laugh, cry, slander each 
other, are in great trouble and care about the continuation of their 
race, try to seem what they are not and to do what they cannot, never 
shave until they have a beard, and often have beards before they 
get discretion, and when they at last have discretion, they drink it 
away in white and red folly. 



* Or in English. 



— 176 — 

Mon dieu! if I had faith, so that I could remove mountains' — the 
Johannisburg would be just the mountain which I would transport 
about everywhere. But not having the requisite amount of faith, 
fantasy must aid me — and she at once bears me to the beautiful 
Bhine. ' 

Oh, there is a fair land, full of loveliness and sunshine. In its blue 
streams are mirrored the mountain shores, with their ruined towers, 
and woods, and ancient towns. There, before the house-door, sit the 
good people, of a summer evening, and drink out of great cans, and 
gossip confidingly, — how the wine — the Lord be praised ! — thrives 
and how justice should be free from all secrecy, and Marie Antoi 
nette's being guillotined is none of our business, and how dear the 
tobacco tax makes the tobacco, and how all mankind are equal, and 
what a glorious fellow Gosrres is. 

I have never troubled myself much with such conversation, and 
greatly preferred sitting by the maidens in the arched window, and 
laughed at their laughing, and let them strike me in the face with 
flowers, and feigned ill-nature until they told me their secrets, or some 
other story of equal importance. Fair Gertrude was half wild with 
delight when I sat by her. She was a girl like a flamiug rose, and 
once as she fell on my neck, I thought that she would burn away in 
perfumes in my arms. Fair Katharine melted in musical sweetness 
when she talked with me, and her eyes were of that pure, perfect 
internal blue, which I have never seen in animated beings, and very 
seldom in flowers — one gazed so gladly into them,' and could then 
ever imagine the sweetest things. But the beautiful Hedwiga loved 
me, for when I came to her she bowed her head till the black locks 
fell down over the blushing countenance, and the gleaming eyes shone 
forth like stars from a dark heaven. Her diffident lips spoke not a 
word, and even I could say nothing to her. I coughed and she 
trembled. She often begged me, through her sisters, not to climb 
the rocks so eagerly, or to bathe in the Bhine when I had exercised 
or drunk wine until I was heated. Once I overheard her pious prayer 
to the image of the Virgin Mart, which she had adorned with leaf 
gold and illuminated with a glowing lamp, and which stood in a cor- 
ner of the sitting-room. She prayed to the Mother of God to keep 
me from climbing, drinking and bathing ! I should certainly have 
been desperately in love with her had she manifested the least ir. dif- 
ference, and I was indifferent because I knew that she loved me. 
Madame, if any one would win my love, they must treat me en 
canaille. 



— 177 — 

Johanna was the cousin of the three sisters, and I was right glad 
to be with her, She -knew the most beautiful old legends, and when 
she pointed with the whitest hand in the world through the window 
out to the mountains where all had happened which she narrated, 
I became fairly enchanted. The old knights rose visibly from the 
ruined castles and hewed away at each other's iron c T Dthes, the Lorely 
sat again on the mountain summit, singing a-down her sweet seductive 
song, and the Ehine rippled so intelligibly, so calmingly- — and yet at 
the same time so mockingly and strangely — and the fair Johanna 
gazed at me so bewilderingly, so mysteriously, so enigmatically con- 
fiding, as though she herself were one with the legend which she 
narrated. She was a slender, pale beauty, sickly and musing, her 
eyes were clear as truth itself, her lips piously arched, in her features 
lay a great untold story — perhaps a love legend ? I know not what 
it was, nor had I ever courage to ask. When I gazed long upon 
her I became calm and cheerful — it seemed to me as though there 
were a tranquil Sunday in my heart, and that the angels were holding 
church service there. 

In such happy hours I told her tales of my childhood, and she 
listened earnestly to me, and singular ! when I could not think of 
this or that name, she remembered it. When I then asked her with 
wonder where she had learned the name, she would answer with a 
smile that she had learned it of a little bird which had built its nest 
on the sill of her window — and she tried to make me believe that 
it was the same bird which I once bought with my pocket money 
from a hard-heaited peasant boy, and then let fly away. But I 
believed that she knew everything because she was so pale, and 
really soon dted. She also knew when she must die, and wished 
that I would leave Andernach the day before. When I bade her 
farewell she gave me both her hands — they were white, sweet hands, 
and pure as the Host — and she said : thou art very good, and when 
thou art bad, then think of the little dead Yeeonica. 

Did the chattering birds also tell her this name ? Often in hours 
when desirous of recalling the past, I had wearied my brain in trying 
to think of that dear name, and could not. 

And now that I have it again, my earliest infancy shall bloom 
again in recollections — and I am again a child, and play with other 
children in the Castle Court at Dusseldorf, on the Rhine. 



178 



CHAPTER VI. 

Yes, Madame, there was I born, and I am particular in calling 
attention to this fact, lest after my death seven cities — those of 
Schilda, Kr'ahwinkel, Polwitz, Bockum, Diilken, Gottingen, and 
Schoppenstadt* — should contend for the honour of having witnessed 
my birth. Dlisseldorf is a town on the Ehine, where about sixteen 
thousand mortals live, and where many hundred thousands are buried. 
And among them are many of whom my mother says it were better if 
they were still alive- — for. example, my grandfather and my uncle, the 
old Herr von Gelden, and the young Herr von Gelden, who were 
both such celebrated doctors, and saved the lives of so many men, and 
yet at last must both die themselves. And good pious Ursula, who 
bore me, when a child, in her arms, also lies buried there, and a rose- 
bush grows over her grave — : she loved rose-perfume so much in her 
life, and her heart was all rose-perfume and goodness. And the 
Bhrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how miserable he 
looked when I last saw him ! He consisted of nothing but soul and 
plasters, and yet he studied night and day as though he feared lest 
the worms might find a few ideas missing in his head. Little 
William also lies there — and that is my fault. We were schoolmates 
in the Franciscan cloister, and were one day playing on that side of 
the building where the Dlissel flows between stone walls, and I said, 
" William — do get the kitten out, which has just fallen in 1" and he 
cheerfully climbed out on the board which stretched over the brook, 
and pulled the cat out of the water, but fell in himslf, and when they 
took him out he was dripping and dead. The kitten lived to a good 
old age. 

The town of Dlisseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when 
in foreign lands and happen at the same time to have been born there, 
strange feelings come over the soul. I was born there, and feel as 
if I must go directly home. And when I say home I mean the 
Volkerstras&e and the house where I was born. This house will be 
some day very remarkable, and I have sent word to the old lady who 
owns it, that she must not for her life sell it. For the whole house 
she would now hardly get as much as the present which the green 



* All insignificant towns — with the exception of Gottingen, which is here supposed to 
be equally insignificant. — Note by the Translator. 



— 179 — 

veiled English ladies will give the servant girl when she shows them 
the room where I was bom and the hen-house wherein my father 
generally imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door 
on which my mother taught me to write with chalk — oh Lord! 
Madame — should I ever become a famous author, it has cost my 
poor mother trouble enough. 

But my renown as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of 
Carrara ; the waste paper laurel with which they have bedecked 
my brow, has not spread its perfume through the wide world, and 
the green veiled English ladies, when they visit Dlisseldorf, leave 
the celebrated house unvisited, and go directly to the Market 
Place and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue which 
stands in its midst. This represents the Prince Elector, Jan Wil- 
helm. He wears black armour and a long, hanging wig. When a 
boy, I was told that the artist who made this statue observed with 
terror while it was being cast that he had not metal enough to fill 
the mould, and then all the citizens of the town came running with 
all their silver spoons, and threw them in to make up the deficiency 
• . — and I often stood for hours before the statue wondering how many 
spoons were concealed in it, and how many apple-tarts the silver 
would buy. Apple tarts were then my passion — now it is love, 
truth, liberty and crab soup — and not far from the statue of the 
Prince Elector, at the Theatre corner, generally stood a curiously 
constructed sabre-legged rascal with a white apron, and a basket girt 
around him full of smoking apple tarts, which he well knew how to 
praise with an irresistible voice. " Here you are ! hot apple tarts ! 
just from the oven — see how they smoke — quite delicious !" Truly, 
whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to win me, he always 
cried in just such an enticing soprano voice, and I should certainly 
have never remained twelve hours by the Signora Gruilietta, if she 
had not thrilled me with her sweet perfumed apple-tart-tones. And 
in fact the apple tarts would never have so sorely tempted me, if 
the crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with 
his white aprons — and it is aprons, you know, which — but I wander 
from the subject. I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has 
so many silver spoons in it, and no soup, and which represents the 
Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. 

He was a brave gentleman 'tis reported, and was himself a man ot 
genius. He founded the picture gallery in Dlisseldorf, and in the 
observatory there, they show a very curiously executed piece of 
wooden work, consisting of one box within another, which he, himself, 



— 180 — 

had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter, he had every day four 
and twenty. 

In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which they 
now are. Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they 
drew their caps over it and slept in peace, and their people slumbered 
calmly at their feet, and when they awoke in the morning they said 
" Good morning, father !"■ — and he replied " Good morning, dear 
children !" 

But there came a sudden change over all this, for one morning when 
we awoke, and would say " Good morning, father !" the father had 
travelled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb 
sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like expression, and people 
slipped silently through tho market and read the long paper placed 
on the door of the townhouse. It was dark and lowering, yet the 
lean tailor Kilian stood in the nankeen jacket, which he generally 
wore only at home, and in his blue woollen stockings so that his little 
bare legs peeped out as if in sorrow, and his thin lips quivered as he 
read, murmuringly, the handbill. An old invalid soldier from the 
Palatine, read it in a somewhat louder tone, and little by little a' 
transparent tear ran down his whitej honorable old mustache. I 
stood near him and asked why we wept? And he replied " The Prince 
Elector has abdicated." And then he read further, and at the words 
" for the long manifested fidelity of my subjects," " and hereby release 
you from allegiance," he wept still more. It is a strange sight to see, 
when so old a man, in faded uniform, with a scarred veteran's face, sud- 
denly bursts into tears. While we read, the Princely Electoral coat 
of arms was being taken down from the Town Hall, and everything 
began to appear as miserably dreary as though we were waiting for 
an eclipse of the sun. The gentlemen town councillors went about 
at an abdicating wearisome gait, even the omnipotent beadle looked 
as though he had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indif- 
ferent, although the crazy Aloyisios, stood upon one leg and chat- 
tered the names of French generals, while the tipsy, crooked 
Gumpertz rolled around in the gutter, singing ca ira! ca ira! 

But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince 
Elector had abducted!" My mother had trouble enough to explain 
the word but I would hear nothing. I knew what I knew, and went 
weeping to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to 
an end — that all the fair flower gardens and green meadows of the 
world were taken up and rolled up, and put away like carpets and 
baize from the floor, that a beadle climbed up on a high ladder and 



' — 181 — 

took down the sun, and that the tailor Kilian stood by and said to 
himself " I must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and 
am to be buried this afternoon." And it grew darker and darker — a 
few stars glimmered sparely on high, and these at length fell down 
like yellow leaves in Autumn, one by one all men vanished, and I a 
poor child, wandered in anguish around, until before the willow fence- 
of a deserted, farm-house, I saw a man digging up the earth with a 
spade, and near him an ugly, spiteful looking woman, who held some- 
thing in her apron like a human head — but it was the moon, and she 
laid it carefully in the open grave — and behind me stood the Palatine 
invalid, sighing and spelling "The Prince Elector has abducted." 

When I awoke, the sun shone as usual through the window, there 
was a sound of drums in the street, and as I entered the sitting 
room and wished my father — who was sitting in his white dressing 
gown — a good morning, I heard the little light-footed barber, as he 
made up his hair, narrate very minutely that homage would that 
morning be offered at the Town Hall to the Arch Duke Joaohim. I 
heard, too, that the new ruler was of excellent family, that he had 
married the sister of the Emperor Napoleon, and was really a very 
respectable man — that he wore his beautiful black hair in U owing 
locks, that he would shortly enter the town, and in fine that he must 
please all the ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming in the streets con- 
tinued, and I stood before the house-door and looked at the French 
troops marching in that joyful race of fame, who, singing and playing, 
swept over the world, the merry, serious faces of the grenadiers, the 
bear-skin shakoes, the tri-coloured cockades, the glittering bayonets, 
the voUigeurs full of vivacity and point oVhonneur, and the omnipotent 
giant-like silver laced Tambour Major, who cast his baton with a 
gilded head as high as the second story, and his eyes to the third, 
where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad that sol- 
diers were to be quartered in our house — in which my mother differed 
from me — and I hastened to the market-place. There everything 
looked changed — somewhat as though the world had been new white- 
washed. A new coat of arms was placed on the Town Hall, its iron 
balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery. French grena- 
diers stood as sentinels, the old gentlemen town councillors had put 
on new faces, and donned their Sunday coats and looked at each 
other Frenchily, and said "Bon jour!" ladies looked from every 
window, curious citizens and armed soldiers filled the square, and I, 
with other boys, climbed on the great bronze horse of the Prince 
Elector, and thence gazed down on the motley crowd. 

16 



— 182 — 

Our neighbor's Peter, and tall Jack Short nearly broke their 
necks in accomplishing this feat, and it would have been better if 
they had been killed outright, for the one afterwards ran away from 
his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot in 
Mayence, while the other, having made geographical researches in 
strange pockets, was on this account elected member of a public 
tread-mill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound 
him to his fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually 
died in London, in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, 
one end of which happened to be firmly attached to something, just 
as a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet. 

Tall Jack told us that there was no school to-day on account of 
the homage. We had to wait a long time ere this was over. 
Finally the balcony of the Council House was filled with gaily dressed 
gentlemen, with flags and trumpets, and our burgomaster, in his cele- 
brated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like India 
rubber or like a night-cap into which one has thrown a stone — only 
that it was not the stone of wisdom — and I could distinctly under- 
stand many of his phrases, for instance that "we are now to be made 
happy" — and at the last words the trumpets sounded out and the 
people cried hurrah ! — and as I myself cried hurrah, I held fast to 
the old Prince Elector. And it was really necessary that I should, 
for I began to grow giddy. It seemed to me as if the people were 
standing on their heads because the world whizzed around, while the 
old Prince Elector, with his long wig, nodded and "whispered, "Hold 
fast to me !" — and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I 
become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze 
horse. 

As I went home I saw the crazy Aloyisius again dancing on one 
leg, while he chattered the names of French generals, and I also be- 
held crooked Gumpertz rolling in the gutter and growling ca ira, ca 
ira, and I said to my mother that we were all to be made happy, and 
that oi that account we had that day no school. 



— 183 — 



CHAPTER YII. 

The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school 
as before, and things were got by heart as before — the Roman Em- 
perors, chronology — the nomina in im, the verba irregularia — Greek, 
Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic — Lord ! my head is 
still giddy with it ! — all must b.e thoroughly learned. And much of 
it was eventually to my advantage. For had I not learned the 
Roman Emperors by heart, it would subsequently have been a mat- 
ter of perfect indifference to me whether Nibbuhr had or had not 
proved that they never really existed. And had I not learned the 
numbers of the different years, how could I ever, in later years, have 
found out any one in Berlin, where one house is as like another as 
drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a 
friend unless you have the number of his house in your head. There- 
fore I associated with every friend some historical event, which had 
happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that 
the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always 
occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For 
instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the Battle of 
Marathon ; if I saw the banker Christian Gumpel, I remembered 
the destruction of Jerusalem ; if a Portugese friend, deeply in debt, 
of the flight of Mahomet ; if the University Judge, a man whose 
probity is well known, of the death of Haman ; and if Wadzeck, I 
was at once reminded of Cleopatra. — Ah, heaven ! the poor creature 
is dead now, our tears are dry, and we may say of her, with Hamlet, 
"Take her for all in all, she was an old woman — we oft shall look 
upon her like again !" But as I said, chronology is necessary. I 
know men who have nothing in their heads but a few years, yet' who 
know exactly where to look for the right houses, and are, moreover, 
regular professors. But oh, the trouble I had at school with my 
learning to count ! — and it went even worse with the ready reckoning. 
I understood best of all, subtraction, and for this I had a very practi- 
cal rule — " Four can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow 
one" — but I advise all, in such a case, to borrow a few extra dollars, 
for no one can tell what may happen. 

But oh ! the Latin ! — Madame, you can really have no idea of what 
a mess it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer 
the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs ! 



— 184 — 

they already knew in their cradles the nouns ending in im. I on the 
contrary had to learn it by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still 
it is well that I knew it. For if I, for example, when I publicly dis- 
puted in Latin, in the College Hall of Gottingen on the 20th of July, 
1825 — Madame, it was well worth while to hear it — if I, I say, had 
said, sinapem instead of sinapim, the blunder would have been evi- 
dent to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. Vis, buris, sitis, 
tussis, cncumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis. — These words which have 
attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch as 
they belonged to a determined class, and yet were withal an excep- 
tion. And the fact that I have them ready at my finger's ends when 
I perhaps need them in a hurry, often affords me in life's darkened 
hours, much internal tranquillity and spiritual consolation. But, 
Madame, the verba irregularia — they are distinguished from the verbis 
regularibus by the fact that the boys in learning them get more 
whippings — are terribly difficult. In the arched way of the Francis- 
can cloister near our school-room, there hung a large Christ-crucified of 
grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times rises in my dreams and 
gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes — before this image 
I often stood and prayed. " Oh thou poor and also tormented God, 
I pray thee, if it be possible, that I may get by heart the irregular 
verbs !" 

I will say nothing of Greek — otherwise I should vex myself too 
m ach. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the 
wrong when they asserted that Greek was an invention of the Devil. 
Lord knows what I suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, 
for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they to 
this very hour have crucified my good name. In fact I never could 
get so far in Hebrew as my watch did, which had a much more inti- 
mate intercourse with pawnbrokers than I, and in consequence 
acquired many Jewish habits — for instance, it would not go on Satur- 
day — and it learned the holy language, and was subsequently occu- 
pied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have 
to my amazement heard it industriously repeating : katal, katalta, 
katalki — kitfel, kittaUa, kittalti — pokat, pokadeti — pikat — pik — pik. 

Meanwhile I learned more of German than of any other tongue, 
though German itself is not such child's play, after all. For we poor 
Germans, who have already been sufficiently vexed with having 
soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand 
other exactions, must needs over and above all this, bag Mr. Adelung, 
and torment each other with accusatives and datives. I learned much 






— 185 — 

German from the old Eector Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, 
whose protege I was from childhood. Something of the matter I 
also learned from Professor Schramm, a man who had written a book 
on eternal peace, and in whose class my school fellows quarrelled and 
fought with unusual vigor. 

And while thus dashing on in a breath, and thinking of everything 
I have unexpectedly found myself back among old school stories, and 
I avail myself of this opportunity to mention, Madame, that it was 
not my fault, if I learned so little of geography, that later in life T 
could not make my way in the world. For in those days the French 
made an intricate mixture of all limits and boundaries, every day 
lands were re-coloured on the world's map ; those which were once 
blue suddenly became green, many indeed were even dyed blood- 
red, the old established rules were so confused and confounded that 
the Devil himself would never have remembered them. The products 
of the country were also changed, chickory-and beets now grew where 
only hares and hunters running after them were once to be seen ; 
even the character of different races changed, the Germans became 
pliant, the French paid compliments no longer, the English ceased 
making ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not 
subtle enough ; there was promotion among princes, old kings obtained 
new uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes, 
many potentates were chased on the other hand from house and home, 
and had to find some new way of earning their bread, while others 
went at once at a trade, and manufactured for instance, sealing-wax, 
or — Madame, this paragraph must be brought to an end, or I shall 
be out of breath — in fine, in such times it is impossible to advance 
far in geography. 

1 succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer 
changes and we always have standard engravings of apes, kang;aroos, 
zebras, rhinoceroses, &c, &c. And having many such pictures in 
my memory, it often happens that at first sight many mortals appear 
to me like old acquaintances. 

I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob 
of gods and goddesses who ran so jolly naked about the world. I 
do not believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew 
the principal points of his catechism — that is, the loves of Yenus — 
better than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we 
must learn all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept 
them from the first, and we have not perhaps made so much out of 
our New-Roman Trinity or our Jewish unity. Perhaps the old 

16* 



— 186 — 

mythology was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, 
for example, a very decent idea of Homer to give to the much loved 
Venus a husband. 

But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbe d'Aulnoi, 
a "French emigrS who had written a number of grammars, and wore a 
red wig, and jumped about very nervously when he recited his Art 
poetique, and his German history. He was the only one in the whole 
gymnasium who taught German history. Still French has its diffi- 
culties, and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, 
much drumming in, much apprendre par coeur, and above all, no one 
should be a Bete allemande. From all this resulted many a cross 
word, and I can remember as though it happened but yesterday, that 
I got into many a scrape through la religion. I was once asked at 
least six times in succession : " Henri, what is the French for ' the 
faith ?' " And six times, ever more weepingly, I replied. " It is 
called le cre'lit.,' And after the seventh question, with his cheeks of 
a deep red-cherry-rage colour, my furious examinator cried " It is 
called la religion " — and there was a rain of blows and a thunder of 
laughter from all my schoolmates. Madame ! — since that day I never 
hear the word religion, without having my back turn pale with terror, 
and my cheeks turn red with shame. And to tell the honest truth, 
le credit has during my life stood me in better stead than la religion. 
It occurs to me just at this instant that I still owe the landlord of the 
Lion, in Bologna, five dollars. And I pledge you my sacred word 
of honour that I would willingly owe him five dollars more, if I could 
only be certain that I should never again hear that unlucky word, 
la religion, as long as I live. 

Parbleu, Madame ! I have succeeded tolerably well in French. 
For I understand not only patois, but even aristocratic governess 
French. Not long 'ago, when in noble society, I understood full 
one-half of the conversation of two German countesses, one of 
whom could count at least sixty-four years, and as many descents. 
Yes — in the Caf6 Royal, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel 
Martens talking French, and could understand every word he spoke, 
though there was no understanding in any thing he said. We must 
know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. 
Parbleu ! how much do I not owe to the French Drummer who was 
so long quartered in our house, who looked like the Devil, and yet 
had the good heart of an angel, and who above all this drummed so 
divinely. 

He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black mustache, 



— 187- — 

beneath which, red lips came bounding suddenly outwards, while his 
wild eyes shot fiery glances all around. 

I, a young shaver, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to clean 
his military buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his 
vest — for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well — and I followed 
him to the watch, to the roll-call, to the parade — in those times 
there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment — les 
jours de fete son t passe'es ! Monsieur Le Grand knew but a little 
broken German, only the three principal words in every tongue — ■ 
"Bread," "Kiss," " Honour"— but he could make himself very in- 
telligible with his drum. For instance, if I knew not what the word 
liben meant, he drummed the Mirseillaise — and I understood him. 
If I did not understand the word egaliU, he drummed the march 

Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira, 

Les aristocrats a la Lanterne ! 

and I understood him. If I did not know what bitise meant, he 
drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also 
declares, have drummed in Champagne — and I understood him. He 
once w T anted to explain to me the word V Allemagne (or Germany) 
and he drummed the all too simple melody, which on market days is 
played to dancing dogs — namely, dum — dum — dumb 1 I was vexod 
— but I understood him, for all that ! 

In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not under- 
stand, it is true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly 
drummed while speaking, I understood him. This is, fundamentally, 
the best method. The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the 
Tuilleries and the like, cannot be correctly understood until we know 
how the drumming was done on such occasions. In our school com- 
pendiums of history we merely read : " Their excellencies, the Baron 
and Count, with the most noble spouses of the aforesaid were 
beheaded." Their highnesses the Dukes and Princes with the most 
noble spouses of the aforesaid were behead." " His Majesty the King 
with his most sublime spouse, the Queen, was beheaded." But when 
you hear the red march of the guillotine drummed, you understand it 
correctly, for the first time, and with it, the how and the why. M adame 
— that is really a wonderful march ! It thrilled through marrow and 
bone when I first heard it, and I was glad that I forgot it. People 
are apt to forget one thing and another as they grow older, and a 
young man has now-a-days so much and such a variety of knowledge 
to keep in his head — whist, Boston, genealogical registers, parlia- 
mentary conclusions, -dramaturgy, the liturgy, carving — and yet, I 



— 188 — 

assure you, that despite all my jogging up of my brain, I could not for a 
long time recall that tremendous tune ! And only to think, Madame ! 
— not long ago, I sat one day at table with a whole menagerie of 
Counts, Princes, Princesses, Chamberlains, Court-Marshal Lesses, 
Seneschals, Upper Court Mistresses, Court-keepers-of-the-royal-plate, 
Court-hunters' wives, and whatever else these aristocratic domestics 
are termed, and their under-domestics ran about behind their chairs, 
and shoved full plates before their mouths — but I, who was passed 
by and neglected, sat at leisure without the least occupation for my 
jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my fingers— 
and to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly drumming the red, 
long-forgotten guillotine march! 

" And what happened ?" — Madame, the good people were not in 
the least disturbed, nor did they know that other people when they 
can get nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very 
queer marches, which people have long forgotten. 

Is drumming now, an inborn talent, or was it early developed in 
me ? — enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often 
involuntarily manifests itself. I once sat at Berlin in the lecture-room 
of the Privy Counsellor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the state by 
his book on the " Red and Black Coat Danger." — You remember, 
perhaps, Madame, that in Pausanias we are told that by the braying 
of an ass an equally dangerous plot was once discovered, and you also 
know from Livy, or from Becker's History of the World, that geese 
once saved the capital, and you must certainly know from Sallust 
that by the chattering of a loquacious putain, the Lady Livia, that 
the terrible conspiracy of Cataltne came to light. But to return 
to the mutton aforesaid. I listened to popular law and right, in the 
lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councillor Schmaltz, and it was a 
lazy sleepy summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench and little by 
little I listened less and less — my head had gone to sleep — when 
all at once I was wakened by the roll of my own feet, which had 
not gone to sleep, and had probably observed that any thing but 
popular rights and constitutional tendencies was being preached, and 
my feet which, with the little eyes of their corns, had seen more of 
how things go in the world than the Privy Councillor with his Juno- 
eyes — these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their immea- 
surable meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible 
by drumming, and they drummed so loudly, that I thereby came 
near getting into a terrible scrape. 

Cursed, unreflecting feet ! They once acted as though they were 



— 189 — 

corned indeed, when I on a time in Gottingen sponged without sub- 
scribing on the lectures of Professor Saalfeld, and as this learned 
gentleman, with his angular activity, jumped about here and there in 
his pulpit, and heated himself in order to curse the' Emperor Napoleon 
in regular set style, right and left — no, my poor feet, I cannot blame 
you for drumming then — indeed, I would not have blamed you if in 
your dumb naivety you had expressed yourselves by still more ener- 
getic movements. How could i", the scholar of Le Grand, hear the 
Emperor cursed ? The Emperor ! the Emperor ! the great Emperor ! 
When I think of the great Emperor, all in my memory again 
becomes summer-green and golden. A long avenue of lindens rises 
blooming around, on the leafy twigs sit singing nightingales, the 
water-fall rustles, flowers are growing from full round beds, dreamily 
nodding their fair heads — I stood amidst them once in wondrous 
intimacy, the rouged tulips, proud as beggars, condescendingly greeted 
me, the nervous sick lilies nodded with woeful tenderness, the tipsy 
red roses nodded at me at first sight from a distance, the night- violets 
sighed — with the myrtle and laurel I was not then acquainted, for 
they did not entice with a shining bloom, but the reseda, with whom 
I am now on such bad terms, was my very particular friend. — I am 
speaking of the court garden of Diisseldorf, where I often lay upon 
the bank, and piously listened there when Monsieur Le Grand told 
of the warlike feats of the great Emperor, beating meanwhile the 
marches which were drummed during the deeds, so that I saw and 
heard all to the life. I saw the passage over the Simplon — the Em- 
peror in advance and his brave grenadiers climbling on behind him, 
while the scream of frightened birds of prey sounded around, and 
avalanches thundered in the distance — -I saw the Emperor with flag 
in hand on the bridge of Lodi — I saw the Emperor in his gray cloak 
at Marengo — I saw the Emperor mounted in the battle of the Pyra- 
mids — naught around save powder, smoke and Mamelukes — I saw 
the Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz — ha ! how the bullets whistled 
over the smooth, icy road ! — I saw, I heard the battle of Jena — 

dum, dum, dum. — I saw, I heard the battles of Eylau, of Wagram 

no, I could hardly stand it ! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that 
I nearly burst my own sheepskin. 



— 190 — 

CHAPTER VIII. 

But what were my feelings when I first saw with highly blest and 
with my own eyes Mm, Hosannah ! the Emperor ! 

It was exactly in the avenue of the Court Garden at l>iisseldorf. 
As I pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds 
and battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my 
heart beat the "general march" — yet at the same time I thought of 
the police regulation, that no one should dare under penalty of five 
dollars fine, ride through the avenue. And the Emperor with his cortege 
rode directly down the avenue. The trembling trees bowed towards 
him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet curiously 
through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there swam 
visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his invisible-green uniform 
and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey which 
stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly — had I then 
been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The 
Emperor sat carelessly, almost lazily, holding with one hand his 
rein, and with the other good naturedly patting the neck of the 
horse. — It was a sunny marble hand, a mighty hand — one of the pair 
which bound fast the many-headed monster of anarchy, and reduced 
to order the war of races — and it good naturedly patted the neck of 
the horse. Even the face had that hue which we find in the marble 
Greek and Roman busts, the traits were as nobly proportioned as in 
the antiques, and on that countenance was plainly written, " Thou 
shalt have no Gods before me !" A smile, which warmed and tran- 
quillized every heart, flitted over the lips — and yet all knew that those 
lips needed but to whistle — et la Prusse n'existait plus — those lips 
needed but to whistle — and the entire clergy would have stopped 
their ringing and singing — those lips needed but to whistle — and the 
entire holy Roman realm would have danced. It was. an eye, clear as 
Heaven, it could read the hearts of men, it saw at a glance all things 
at once, and as they were in this world, while we ordinary mortals 
see them only one by one and by their shaded hues. The brow was 
not so clear, the phantoms of future battles were nestling there, and 
there was a quiver which swept over the brow, and those were the 
creative thoughts, the great seven-mile-boots thoughts, wherewith 
the spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly over the world — and I 
believe that every one of those thoughts would have given to a 
German author full material wherewith to write, all the days of his 



— 191 — 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Indian Sea lies 
his lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow, lies 
silently under a little hillock, where five weeping willows hang their 
green heads, and a gentle little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples 
by. There is no inscription on his tomb ; but Clio, with unerring 
pen, has written thereon invisible words, which will resound, like 
spirit-tones, through thousands of years. 

Britannia ! the sea is thine. But the sea hath not water enough to 
wash 'away the shame with which the death of that Mighty One hath 
covered thee. Not thy windy Sir Hudson — no, thou thyself wert 
the Sicilian bravo with whom perjured kings bargained, that they 
might revenge on the man of the people that which the people had 
once inflicted on one of themselves. — And he was thy guest, and had 
seated himself by thy hearth. 

Until the latest times the boys of France Will sing and tell of the 
terrible hospitality of the Bellerophon, and when those songs of 
mockery and tears resound across the strait, there will be a blush on 
the cheeks of every honorable Briton. But a day will come when 
this song will ring thither, and there will be no Britannia in exis- 
tence — when the people of Pride will be humbled to the earth, when 
Westminster's monuments will be broken, and when the royal dust 
which they enclosed will be forgotten. — And St. Helena is the Holy 
Grave, whither the races of the East and of the West will make their 
pilgrimage in ships, with pennons of many a hue, and their hearts 
will grow strong with great memories of the deeds of the worldly 
Saviour, who suffered and died under Sir Hudson Lowe, as it is writ- 
ten in the evangelists, Las Casas, O'Meara and Autommarchi. 

Strange ! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three 
greatest enemies of the Emperor. Londonderry has cut his throat, 
Louis XY III has rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld 
•Is still, as before, Professor in Gottingen. 



192 — 



CHAPTEE X. 

It was a clear, frosty morning in autumn as a young man, whose 
appearance denoted the student, slowly loitered through the avenue 
of the Diisseldorf Court- Garden, often, as in child-like mood, push- 
ing aside with wayward feet the leaves which covered the ground, and 
often sorrowfully gazing towards the bare trees, on which a few gol- 
den-hued leaves still fluttered in the breeze. As he thus gazed up, 
he thought on the words of Glaucus : 

Like the leaves in the forests, e'en so are the races of mortals ; 

Leaves are blown down to the earth by the wind, while others are 
driven 

Away by the green budding wood, when fresh up-liveth the spring- 
tide ; 

So the races of man — this grows and the other departeth. 

In earlier days the youth had gazed with far different eyes on the 
same trees. When he was a boy he had there sought bird's nests or 
summer chafers, which delighted his very soul, as they merrily 
hummed around, and were glad in the beautiful world, and were con- 
tented with a sap-green leaf and a drop of water, with a warm sun- 
ray and with the perfume of the herbage. In those times the boy's 
heart was as gay as the fluttering insects. But now his heart had 
grown older, its little sun-rays were quenched, its flowers had faded, 
even its beautiful dream of love had grown dim ; in that poor heart 
was naught save wanton will and care, and to say the worst — it was 
my heart. 

I had returned that day to my old father-town, but I would not 
remain there over night, and I longed for Godesberg, that I might 
sit at the feet of my lady friend and tell of the little Veronica. I had 
visited the dear graves. Of all my living friends, I had found but an 
uncle and an aunt. Even when I met once known forms in the street, 
they knew me no more, and the town itself gazed on me with strange 
glances. Many houses were coloured anew, strange faces gazed on 
me through the window-panes, worn out old sparrows hopped on the 
old chimneys, everything looked dead and yet fresh, like a salad grow- 
ing in a grave-yard ; where French was once spoken I now heard the 
Prussian dialect ; even a little Prussian court had taken up its retired 
dwelling there, and the people bore court titles. The hair-dresser of 



— 193 — 

my mother had now become the Court Hair-Dresser, and there were 
Court-Tailors, Court-Shoemakers, Court-Bed-Bug-Destroyers, Court- 
Groggeries — the whole town seemed to be s Court-Hospital for 
courtly spiritual invalids. Only the old Prince Elector knew me, 
he still stood in the same old place ; but he seemed to have grown 
thinner. For just because he stood in the Market Place, he had had 
a full view of all the miseries of the time, and people seldom grow fat 
on such sights. I was as if in a dream, and thought of the legend of 
the enchanted city, and hastened out of the gate, lest I should awake 
too soon. I missed many a tree in the court-garden, and many had 
grown crooked with age, and the four great poplars which once seemed 
to me like green giants, had become smaller. Pretty girls were 
walking here and there, dressed as gaily as wandering tulips. And I 
had known these tulips when they were but little bulbs ; for ah ! they 
were the neighbors' children with whom I had once played " Princess 
in the Tower." But the fair maidens, whom I had once known as 
blooming roses were now faded roses, and in many a high brow whose 
pride had once thrilled my heart, Saturn had cut deep wrinkles with 
his scythe. And now for the first time, and alas ! too late, I under- 
stood what those glances meant, which they had once cast on the 
adolescent boy ; for I had meanwhile in other lands fathomed the 
meaning of similar glances in other lovely eyes. I was deeply moved 
by the humble bow of a man, whom I had once known as wealthy and 
respectable, and who had since become a beggar. Everywhere in 
the world, we see that men when they once begin to fall, do so accord- 
ing to Newton's theory, ever faster and faster in ratio as they descend 
to misery. One, however, who did not seem to be in the least changed 
was the little baron, who tripped merrily as of old through the Court 
Garden, holding with one hand his left coat-skirt on high, and with 
the other swinging hither and thither his light cane ; — he still had 
the same genial face as of old, its rosy bloom now somewhat concen- 
trated towards the nose, but he had the same nine-pin hat as of old, 
and the same old queue behind, only that the hairs which peeped from it 
were now white instead of black. But merry as the old baron seemed, 
it was still evident that he had suffered much sorrow, — his face would 
fain conceal it, but the white hairs of his queue betrayed him behind 
his back. Yet the queue itself seemed striving to lie, so merrily did 
it shake. 

I was not weary, but a fancy seized me to sit once more on the 
wooden bench, on which I had once carved the name of my love. I 

IT 



— 194 — 

could hardly discover it among the many new names, which had since 
been cut around. Ah ! once I slept upon this bench, and dreamed 
of happiness and love. " Dreams are foams and gleams." And the 
old plays of childhood came again to my soul, and with them old and 
beautiful stories ! but a new treacherous game, and a new terrible 
tale ever resounded through all, and it was the story of two poor souls 
who were false to each other, and went so far in their untruth, that 
they were at last unfaithful to the good God himself. It is a bad, 
sad story, and when one has nothing better on hand to do, he can well 
weep over it. Oh, Lord ! once the world was so beautiful, and the 
birds sang thy eternal praise, and little Veronica looked at me with 
silent eyes, and we sat by the marble statue before the castle court ; 
— on one side lies an old ruined castle, wherein ghosts wander, and 
at night a headless dame in long, trailing black-silken garments sweeps 
around : — on the other side is a high, white dwelling in whose upper 
rooms gay pictures gleamed beautifully in their golden frames, while 
below stood thousands of great books which Veronica and I beheld 
with longing, when the good Ursula lifted us up to the window. — In 
later years when I had become a great boy, I climbed every day to 
the very top of the library ladder, and brought down the topmost 
books, and read in them so long, that finally I feared nothing — least 
of all ladies without heads — and became so wise that I forgot all the 
old games and stories and pictures and little Veronica — whose very 
name I also forgot. 

But while I, sitting upon the bench in the Court-garden, dreamed 
my way back into the past, there was a sound behind me of the con- 
fused voices of men lamenting the ill fortune of the poor French soldiers, 
who having been taken prisoners in the Russian war and sent to 
Siberia, had there been kept prisoners for many a long year, though 
peace had been re-established, and who now were returning home. 
As I looked up, I beheld in reality several of these orphan children 
of Fame. Through their tattered uniforms peeped naked misery, 
deep sorrowing eyes were couched in their desolate faces, and though 
mangled, weary, and mostly lame, something of the military manner 
was still visible in their mien. Singularly enough, they were preceded 
by a drummer who tottered along with a drum, and I shuddered as I 
recalled the old legend of soldiers, who had fallen in battle, and who 
by night rising again from their graves on the battle-field, and with 
the drummer at their head, marched back to their native city. And 
of them the old*ballad sings thus : 



— 195 — 

" He beat on the drum with might and main, 
To their old night-quarters they go again ; 

Through the lighted street they come ; 

Trallerie — trallerei — trallera, 
They march before Sweetheart's home. 

Thus the dead return ere break of day, 
Like tombstones white in their cold array, 

And the drummer he goes before ; 

Trallerie— trallerei — trallera, 
And we see them come no more." 

Truly the poor French drummer seemed to have risen but half 
repaired from the grave. He was but a little shadow in a dirty 
patched gray capote, a dead yellow countenance, with a great mus- 
tache which hung down sorrowfully over his faded lips, his eyes were 
like burnt out tinder, in which but a few sparks still gleamed, and 
yet by one of those sparks I recognized Monsieur Le Grand. 

He too recognized me and drew me to the turf, and we sat down 
together as of old, when he taught me on the drum French and Modern 
History. He had still the well known old drum, and I could not suffi- 
ciently wonder how he has preserved it from Russian plunderers. And 
he drummed again as of old, but without speaking a word. But though 
his lips were firmly pressed together, his eyes spoke all the more, flash- 
ing fiercely and victoriously, as he drummed the old marches. The 
poplars near us trembled, as he again thundered forth the red march 
of the guillotine. And he drummed as before, the old battles, the 
deeds of the Emperor, and it seemed as though the drum itself were 
a living creature which rejoiced to speak out its inner soul. I heard 
once more the cannon thunder, the whistling of balls, the riot of 
battle, the death rage of the Guards — I saw once more the waving 
flags, again, the Emperor on his steed — but little by little there fell a 
sad tone in amid the most stirring confusion, sounds rang from the 
drum, in which the wildest hurrahs and the most fearful grief were 
mysteriously mingled ; it seemed a march of victory and a march of 
death. Le Grand's eyes opened spirit-like and wide, and I saw in 
them nothing but a broad white field of ice covered with corpses — it 
was the battle of Moscow. 

I had never imagined that the hard old drum could give forth sucl 
wailiDg sounds as Monsieur Le Grand had drawn from it. The? 
were tears which he drummed, and they sounded ever softer ana 



— 196 — 

softer, and like a troubled echo, deep sighs broke from Le Gras d's 
breast. And they became ever more languid and ghost-like, his dry 
hands trembled, as if from frost, he sat as in a dream, and stirred with 
his drum-stick nothing but the air, and seemed listening to voices far 
away, and at last he gazed on me with a deep — oh, so deep and 
entreating a glance — I understood him — and then his head sunk 
down on the drum. 

In this life Monsieur Le Grand never drummed more. And his 
drum never gave forth another sound, for it was not destined to 
serve the enemies of liberty for their servile roll calls. I had well 
understood the last entreating glance of Le Grand, and I at once 
drew the rapier from my cane, and with it pierced the drum. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Du sublime au ridicule il n J y a qu y un pas, Madame ! 

Eut life is in reality so terribly serious, that it would be insupport- 
able were it not for these unions of the pathetic and the comic, as oi» 
poets well know. Aristophanes only exhibits the most harrow- 
ing forms of human madness in the laughing mirror of wit, Goethe 
only presumes to set forth the fearful pain of thought comprehending 
its own nothingness in the doggrel of a puppet show, and Shaks- 
peare puts the most agonizing lamentations on the misery of the 
world in the mouth of a fool, who meanwhile rattles his cap and bells 
in all the nervous suffering of pain. 

They have all learned from the great First Poet, who, in his World 
Tragedy in thousands of acts, knows how to carry humor to the high- 
est point, as we see every day. After the departure of the heroes, 
the clowns and graeiosos enter with their baubles and lashes, and after 
the bloody scenes of the Revolution, there came waddling on the stage 
the fat Bourbons, with their stale jokes and tender ' legitimate' bon 
mots, and the old noblesse with their starved laughter hopped merrily 
before them, while behind all, swept the pious Capuchins with can- 
dles, cross and banners of the Church. Yes — even in the highest 
pathos of the World Tragedy, bits of fun slip in. It may be that 
the desperate republican, who, like a Brutus, plunged a knife to his 
heart, first smelt it to see whether some one had not split a herring 
with it — and on this great stage of the world all passes exactly the 



— i97 — 

Bame as on our beggarly boards. On it, too, there are tipsy heroes, 
kings who forget their parts, scenes which obstinately stay up in the 
air, prompter's voices sounding above everything, danseuses who 
create astonishing effects with their legs, and above all costumes 
which are and ever will be the main thing. And high in Heaven, in 
the first row of the boxes sit the lovely angels, and keep their lore/ 
nettes on us poor sinners commedianizing, here down below, and the 
blessed Lord himself sits seriously in his splendid seat, and, perhaps, 
finds it dull, or calculates that this theatre cannot be kept up much 
longer because this one gets too high a salary, and that one too 
little, and that they altogether play far too indifferently. 

Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas, Madame ! As I ended 
the last chapter, narrating to you how Monsiur Le Grand died, and 
how I conscientiously executed the testamentum militare which lay in 
his last glance, some one knocked at my room door, and there entered 
an old woman, who asked, pleasantly, if I were not a Doctor ? And 
as I assented, she asked me in a friendly, patronizing tone to go with 
her to her house that I might there cut the corns of her husband. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The German censors of the press — 

— —. — blockheads 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Madame ! under Leda's productive hemispheres lay in embryo the 
whole Trojan world, and you could never understand the far-famed 
tears of Priam, if I did not first tell you of the ancient eggs of the 
Swan. And I pray you, do not complain of my digressions. In 
every foregoing and foregone chapter, there is not a line which does 
not belong to the business in hand — I write in bonds ; I avoid all 

1*7* 



— 198 — 

superfluity ; I ever arid often neglect the necessary — for instance, I 
have not regularly cited — I do not mean spirits, but on the contrary, 
beings which are often quite spiritless, that is to say, authors- — and 
yet the citation of old and new books is the chief pleasure of a young 
author, and a few fundamentally erudite quotations often adorn the 
entire man. Never believe, Madame, that I am wanting in knowledge 
of titles of books. Moreover, I have caught the knack of those great 
souls who know how to pick corianders out of biscuit, and citations 
from college lecture books ; and I can also tell whence Bartle brought 
the new wine. Nay — in case of need, I can negotiate a loan of quo- 
tations from my learned friends. My friend G , in Berlin is, so 

to speak a little Kothschild in quotations, and will gladly lend me a 
few millions, and if he does not happen to have them about him, I 
can easily find some cosmopolite spiritual bankers who have. But 
what need of loans have I, who am a man who stands well with the 
world, and have my annual income of 10,000 quotations to spend at 
will? I have even discovered the art of passing off forged quota- 
tions for genuine. If any wealthy literary man would like to buy 
this secret, I will cheerfully sell it for nineteen thousand current 
dollars — or will trade with him. Another of my discoveries I will 
impart gratis for the benefit of literature. 

I hold it to be an advisable thing when quoting from an obscure 
author to invariably give the number of his house. 

These " good men and bad musicians," as the orchestra is termed 
in Ponce de Leon — these unknown authors almost invariably still 
possess a copy of their long out-of-print works, and to hunt up this 
latter it is necessary to know the number of their houses. If I 
wanted, for example, to find " Spitta's Song Book for Travelling 
Journeymen Mechanics," — my dear Madame where would you look 
for the book ? But if quoted : 

" Vide — Song Book for Travelling Journeyman apprentices, by P. 
Spitta ; Luneburg, Liiner Street, No. 2, right hand, around the 
corner." 

And so you could, if it were worth your while, Madame, hunt np 
the book. But it is not worth the while. 

Moreover, Madame, you can have no idea of the facility with which 
I quote. Everywhere do I discover opportunities to parade my pro- 
found pedantry. If I chance to mention eating, I at once remark in 
a note that the Greeks, Bomans and Hebrews also ate — I quote all 
the costly dishes which were prepared by Lucullus's cook — woe me, 
that I was born fifteen hundred years too late !— I also remark, thai 



— 199 — 

these meals were called this, that, or the other by the Eomans, and 
that the Spartans ate black broth. After all, it is well that I did 
not live in those days, for I can imagine nothing more terrible than if 
I, poor devil, had been a Spartan. Soup is my favourite dish. 
Madame, I have thought of going next year to London, but if it is 
really true, that no soup is to be had there, a deep longing will soon 
drive me back to the soup-flesh-pots of the Fatherland. I could also 
dilate by the hour on the cookery of the ancient Hebrews, and also 
descend into the kitchen of the Jews of the present day. I may cite 
apropos of this the entire Steinweg. I might also allege the refined 
manner in which many Berlin Savans have expressed themselves 
relative to Jewish eating, which would lead me to the other excel- 
lencies and pre-eminencies of the chosen people, to which we are 
indebted, as for instance, their invention of bills of exchange and 
Christianity — but hold ! it will hardly do for me to praise the latter too 
highly — not having as yet made much use of it — and I believe, that 
the Jews themselves have not profited so much by it as by their 
bills of exchange. "While on the Jews I could appropriately quote 
Tacitus — he says that they honoured asses in their temples — and 
what a field of rich erudition and quotation opens on us here ! How 
many a note-worthy thing can be adduced on ancient asses as 
opposed to the modern. How intelligent were the former, and, ah ! 
how stupid are the latter. How reasonably — for instance — spoke 
the ass of B. Balaam. 

Vide Pentat. Lib. — . — — — 

Madame, I have not the work just at hand, and will here leave a 
Matus to be filled at a convenient opportunity. On the other hand, 
to confirm my assertion of the dulness, tameness, and stupidity of 
modern asses, I may allege 

Vide. ___ — _-____ 



— — no, I will leave these quotations also unquoted, other- 
wise I myself will be cited, namely, injuriarum or for scan. mag. 
The modern asses are great asses. The antique asses, who had 
reached such a pitch of refinement 

Vide Gesneri de -antiqua honestate asinorum. 

[In comment. Gotting T. II. p. 32.) 

— would turn in their graves could they hear how people talk about 
their descendants. Once "Ass" was an honourable title, signifying 
as much as "Court-Councillor" "Baron," "Doctor of Philosophy/' 



— 200 — 

— Jacob compared his son Issachar to one, Homer his hero Ajax, 
and now we compare Mr. von ******* to the same ! 

Madame, while speaking of such asses I could sink deep into literary 
history, and mention all the great men who ever were in love, for 
example Abelardus, Picus Mirandola, Borbonius, Curtesius, 
Angelus Politianus, Raymondus Lullius and Henricus Heineus. 
While on Love I could mention all the great men who never smoked 
tobacco, as for instance Cicero, Justinian, Goethe, Hugo, I myself, 
— — by chance it happens that we are all five a sort of half and 
half lawyers — Mabillion could not for an instant endure the 
piping of another, for in his Itinere Germanico, he complains as 
regarded the German taverns, " quod molestus ipsi fuenttabaci grave 
olentis foetor ." On the other hand very great men have manifested 
an extraordinary partiality for tobacco. Raphael Thorus wrote a 
hymn in its praise — — Madame, you may not perhaps be aware 
that Isaac Elzevir published it in 1628, at Leyden, in quarto — and 
Ludovicus Kinschot wrote an oration in verses on the same subject,, 
Gr^evius has even composed a sonnet on the soothing herb, and the 
great Boxhornius also loved tobacco. Bayle in his Diet Hist, et 
Critiq. remarks of him that in smoking he wore a hat with a broad 
brim, in the fore part of which he had a hole, through which the pipe 
was stuck that it might not hinder his studies. Apropos of Box- 
hornius, I might cite all the great literati who were threatened with 
bucks' horns, and who ran away in terror. But I will only mention 
Joh. Georg Martius : de fuga literatorum, et cetera, etc. &c. If we 
go through history, Madame, we find that all great men have been 
obliged to run away once in their lives : Lot, Tarquin, Moses, Jupi- 
ter, Madame de Stael, Nebuchadnezzar, Benjowsky, Mahomet, the 
whole Prussian Army, Gregory TIL, Rabbi Jizchak Abarbanel, 

Rousseau to which I could add very many other names, as for 

instance those whose names stand on the Black Board of the 
Exchange.* 

So, Madame, you see that I am not wanting in well grounded erudi- 
tion and profundity. Only in Systematology am I a little behindhand. 
As a genuine German, I ought to have begun this book with a full expla- 
nation of its title, as is usual in the holy Roman Empire, by custom 



*In some German cities the names of absconding bankrupts are permanently placarded 
on the Exchange. In America, such names are published in a much more original 
manner, viz. by changing them into verbs synonymous of " grabbing and DDlting," e.g. 
To £wrartwout, to Schuylerize. 



— 201 — 

and by prescription. Phidias, it is true, made no preface to his 
Jupiter, as little to the Medicean Venus— I have regarded her from 
every point of view, without finding the slightest introduction — but 
the old Greeks were Greeks, and when a man is a decent, honest, 
honourable German, he cannot lay aside his German nature, and I 
must accordingly 'hold forth' in regular order, on the title of my book. 

Madame, I shall consequently proceed to speak 

L Of Ideas. 

A. Of Ideas in general, 
a. Of reasonable Ideas. 

B. Of unreasonable Ideas. 
:,. Of ordinary Ideas. 

j3. Of Ideas covered with green leather. 
These are again divided into — — — as will appear in due 
time and place. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Madame, have you on the whole, an idea of an idea ? What is an 
idea ? " There are some good ideas in the build of this coat," said 
my tailor to me as he with earnest attention gazed on the overcoat, 
which dates in its origin from my Berlin dandy days, and from which 
a respectable, quiet dressing-gown is now to be manufactured. My 

washerwoman complains that the Reverend Mr. S has been 

putting " ideas" into the head of her daughter, which have made her 
foolish and unreasonable. The coachman, Pattensen, grumbles out 
on every occasion, " That's an idea ! that's an idea !" Yesterday 
evening he was regularly vexed when I inquired what sort of a 
thing he imagined an idea to be ? And vexedly did he growl, " Nu, 

Nu, — an idea is an idea ! — an idea is any d d nonsense that a 

man gets into his head." It is in this significaion that the word is 
used as the title of a book, by the Court-Counsellor Heeeen in 
Gottingen. 

The coachman, Pattensen, is a man who can find his way through 
night and mist over the broad Llineburger Heath ; — the Court Coun- 
sellor, Heeeen, is one who, with equally cunniDg instinct, can discover 
the ancient caravan road to the East, and plods on thither as safely 
and as patiently as any camel of antiquity. We can trust such peo- 
ple, and follow them without doubt, and therefore I have entitled this 
book, " Ideas." 



— 202 — 

But the title of the book signifies, on that account, as little as the 
title of its author. It was chosen by him under any inspiration save 
that of pride, and should be interpreted to signify anything but 
vanity. Accept, Madame, my most sorrowful assurance that I am 
not vain. This remark — as you yourself were about to remark — is 
necessary. My friends, as well as divers more or less contemptible 
contemporaries, have fully taken care of thai in advance of you. You 
know, Madame, that old women are accustomed to take children 
down a little when any one praised their beauty, lest praise might 
hurt the little darlings. You remember, too, Madame, that in Eome, 
when any one who had gained a military triumph and rode like a god, 
crowned with glory and arrayed in purple, on his golden chariot with 
white horses, from the Campus Martins, amid a festal train of lictors, 
musicians, dancers, priests, slaves, elephants, trophy-bearers, consuls, 
senators, soldiers : then behind him the vulgar mob sang all manner 
of mocking songs. — And you know, Madame, that in our beloved 
Germany there are many old women and a very great vulgar mob. 

As I intimated, Madame, the ideas here alluded to are as remote 
from those of Plato as Athens from G-ottingen, and you should no 
more form undue expectations as to the book than as to its author. 
In fact, how the latter could ever have excited anything of the sort 
is as incomprehensible to me as to my friends. The Countess Julia 
explains the matter by assuring us, that when he says anything really 
witty and original, he only does it to humbug the world, and that he 
is in fact as stupid as any other mortal. That is false — I do not 
humbug at all — I sing just as my bill grows. I write in all innocence 
and simplicity whatever comes into my head, and it is not my fault 
if that happens to be something dashed with genius. At any rate, I 
have better luck in writing than in the Altona Lottery — I wish that 
it was the other way — and there come from my pen many heart- 
stunnerS' — many clwirs of thought — all of which is done by the Lord ; 
for He who has denied to the most devoted psalm-makers and moral 
poets all beautiful thoughts and all literary reputation, lest they 
should be praised too much by their earthly fellow-creatures, and 
thereby forget heaven, where the angels have already engaged board 
for them in advance ; — He, I say, provides us other profane, sinful, 
heretical authors, for whom heaven is as good as nailed up, all the 
more with admirable ideas and earthly fame, and this indeed from 
divine grace and mercy, so that the poor souls, since they are really 
here, be not altogether wanting, and that they may at least enjoy upon 
earth some of that joy which is denied to them in heaven. 



— 203 -'. 

Vide Goethe and the tract-writers. 
» You consequently see, Madame, that you can, without distrust, 
read my writings, as they set forth the grace and mercy of God. I 
write in blind reliance on his omnipotence. I am in this respect a 
true Christian author, and, to speak like Gubitz, even in this present 
paragraph do not know exactly how I am going to bring it to an 
end, and to effect it I trust entirely to the aid of the Lord. And 
how could I write without this pious reliance ? — for lo ! even now 
there stands before me the devil from Langhoff's printing office, 
waiting for copy, and the new-born word wanders warm and wet to 
the press, and what I at this instant think and feel, may to-morrow 
be waste paper. 

It is all very fine, Madame, to remind me of the Horatian nonum 
prematur in annum. This rule, like many others, may be very pretty 
in theory, but is worth little in practice. When Horace gave to 
the author that celebrated precept, to let his works lie nine years in 
the desk, he should also have given with it a receipt for living nine 
years without food. While Horace was inventing this advice, he 
sat, in all probability, at the table of M^cenas eating roast turkey 
with truffles, pheasant-puddings with venison sauce, ribs of larks 
with mangled turnips, peacock's tongues, Indian bird's-nests, and 
the Lord knows what all, and everything gratis at that. But we, the 
unlucky ones, born too late, live in another sort of times. Our Mae- 
cenases have an altogether different set of principles ; they believe 
that authors, like medlars, are best after they have lain some time on 
straw, they believe that literary hounds are spoiled for hunting similes 
and thoughts if they are fed too high, and when they do take it into 
their heads to give to some one a feed it is generally the worst dog 
who gets the biggest piece,— some fawning spaniel who licks the hand, 
or diminutive " King Charles" who knows how to cuddle up into a 
lady's perfumed lap, or some patient puppy of a poodle, who has 
learned some bread-earning science, and who can fetch and carry, 
dance and drum. While I write this my little pug-dog behind me 
begins to bark. Be still there, Ami ! I did not mean you, for you 
love me, and accompany your master about, in need and danger, and 
you would die on my grave, as true-heartedly as many other German 
dogs, who, turned away, lie before the gates of Germany, and hunger 
and whine — excuse me, Madame, for digressing, merely to vindicate the 
honor of my dog : — I now return to the Horatian rule and its inap- 
plicability in the Nineteenth Century, when poets are compelled to 
make cream-pot love to the Muses — ma foi, Madame, I could never 



— 204 — 

observe that rule for four and twenty hours, let alone nine years, my 
belly has no appreciation of the beauties of immortality. I haye 
thought the matter over and concluded that it is better to be only 
half immortal and altogether fat, and if Voltaire was willing to give 
three hundred years of his eternal fame for one good digestion, so 
would I give twice as much for the dinner itself. And oh, what 
lovely beautiful eating there is in this world ! The philosopher Pan- 
gloss is right, it is the best world ! But one must have money in this 
best of worlds. Money in 'the pocket, not manuscripts in the desk. 
Mr. Mark, mine host of " the King of England," is himself an author 
and also knows the Horatian rule, but I do not believe that if I 
wished to put it into practice he would feed me for nine years. 

And why in fact should I practise it ? I have so much which 
is good to write of, that I have no occasion to fritter away time 
over " tight papers." So long as my heart is full of love, and, the 
heads of my fellow mortals full of folly, I shall never be hot pressed 
for writing material. And my heart will ever love so long as there 
are women, should it cool over one, it will immediately fire up over 
another, and as the King never dies in France, so the Queen never 
dies in my heart, where the word is, la reine est morte, vive la reine! 
And in like manner the folly of my fellow mortals will live for ever. 
For there is but one wisdom, and it hath its fixed limits, but there 
are a thousand illimitable follies. The learned casuist and carer for 
souls, Schtjpp, even saith that in the world are more fools than human 
beings. 

Vide Schupp's Instructive Writings, p. 1121, 

If we remember that the great Schuppius lived in Hamburg, we 
may find that his statistical return was not exaggerated. I am now 
in the same place, and may say that I really become cheerful when I 
reflect that all these fools whom I see here, can be used in my writings, 
they are- cash down, ready money. I feel like a diamond in cotton. 
The Lord hath blessed me, the fool-crop has turned out uncommonly 
well this year, and like a good landlord I consume only a few at a 
time, and lay up the best for the future. People see me out walking, 
and wonder that I am jolly and cheerful. Like a rich, plump merchant 
who rubbing his hands with genial joy wanders here and there amid 
chests, bales, boxes, and casks, even so do I wander around among 
my people. Ye are all mine own ! Ye are all equally dear to me, 
and I love ye, as ye yourselves love your own gold, and that is more 
than a little. Oh ! how I laughed from my heart when I lately 
heard that one of my people had asserted with concern that he knew 



, 



_ 205 — 

not how I could live — or what means I had — and yet he himself is such 
a first-rate fool that I could live from him alone as on a capital. Many 
a fool is, however, to me not only ready money, but I have already de- 
termined in my own mind what is to be done with the cash which I 
intend to write out of him. Thus, for instance, from a certain, well-lined, 
plump millionaire, I shall write me a certain, well-lined, plump arm-chair, 
of that sort which the French call chaise perc'ee. From his fat million- 
airess I will buy me a horse. When I see the plump old gentleman — 
a camel will get into heaven before that man would ever go through the 
eye of a needle — when I see him waddling along on the Promenade, 
a wondrous feeling steals over me, I salute him involuntarily, though 
I have no acquaintance with him, and he greets me again so invitingly, 
that I would fain avail myself of his goodness on the spot, and am 
only prevented by the sight of the many gaily dressed people passing 
by. His lady wife is not so bad looking — she has, it is true, only 
one eye, but that is all the greener on that account, her nose is like 
the tower which looketh forth towards Damascus, her bosom is broad 
as the billowy sea, and all sorts of ribbons flutter above it like the 
flags of the ships which have long since sailed over this ocean bosom — 
it makes one sea-sick just to glance at it — her neck is quite fair and 
as plumply rounded as — the simile will be found a little further 
along — and on the violet blue curtain which covers this compa- 
rison, thousands on thousands of silk worms have spun away their 
lives. You see, Madame, what a horse I must have in my mind ! 
When I meet this lady, my heart rises within me, I feel at once as 
if I were ready to ride — I flourish my switch, I snap my fingers, I 
cluck my tongue — I make all sorts of equestrian movements with 
my legs — hap ! — hey — gee up — g'lang ! — and the dear lady smiles 
on me so intelligently, so full of soul, so appreciatingly as if she 
read my every thought. — she neighs with her nostrils, sl\e coquettes 
with the crupper — she curvetg, and then suddenly goes off in a dog- 
trot. And I stand there, with folded arms, looking pleasedly on her 
as she goes, and reflect whether I shall ride my steed with a curbed 
bit or a snaffle-bridle, and whether I shall give her an English or a 
Polish saddle — et cetera. People who see me standing thus cannot 
conceive what there can be in the lady which so attracts me. Med- 
dling, scandal-bearing tongues have already tried to make her husband 
uneasy, and insinuated that I looked on his wife with the eye of a 
roiie. But my honest, soft leather chaise percSe has answered that 
he regards me as an innocent, even somewhat bashful youth, who 
looks carefully, like one desirous of nearer acquaintance, but who is 

18 



— 206 — 

restrained by blushing bashfulness. My noble steed thinks on the 
contrary, that I have a free, independent, chivalric air, and that my 
salutatory politeness only expresses a wish to be invited for once to 
dinner with her. 

Yon see, Madame, that I can thus use everybody, and that th 
city directory is really the inventory of my property. And 1 can 
consequently never become bankrupt, for my creditors themselves 
are my profits, or will be changed to such. Moreover, as T before 

said, I live economically, — d d economically ! For instance, 

while I write this, I sit in a dark, noisy room, on the " Dusty street ;" 
but I cheerfully endure it, for I could, if I only chose, sit in the most 
beautiful garden, as well as my friends and my loves ; for I only need 
at once realize my scfinapps-clieyvts. These, Madame, consist of decayed 
hair-dressers, broken-down panders, bankrupt keepers of eating-houses, 
who themselves can get nothing to eat — finished blackguards, who 
know where to seek me, and who, for the wherewithal to buy & drink 
(money down), furnish me with all the chronique scandaleuse of their 
quarter of the town. Madame, you wonder that I do not, once for 
all, kick such a pack out of doors ? — why, Madame, what can you be 
thinking of? — these people are my flowers. Some day I will write 
them all down in a beautiful book, with the proceeds from which I 
will buy me a garden, and their red, yellow, blue and variegated 
countenances now appear to me like the flowers of that fair garden. 
What do I care, if strange noses assert that these flowers smell of 
anniseed brandy, tobacco, cheese and blasphemy ! My own nose, the 
chimney of my head, wherein the chimney-sweep of my imagination 
climbs up and down, asserts the contrary, and smells in the fellows 
nothing but the perfume of roses, violets, pinks and tuberoses — oh ! 
how gloriously will I some morning sit in my garden, listening to the 
song of the, birds, and warm my limbs in the blessed sunshine, and 
inhale the fresh breath of the leaves, and, as I glance at the flowers, 
think of my old blackguards ! 

At present 1 sit near the dark " Dusty street," in my darker room, 
and please myself by hanging up in it the greatest "obscurity" of the 
country — "Mais est ce que vous verrez plus clair alors?" Appa- 
rently, Madame, such is the case — but do not misunderstand me — 
I do not mean that I hang up the man himself, but the crystal lamp 
which I intend to buy with the money I mean to write out of him. 
Meanwhile, I believe that it would be clearer through all creation, 
if we could hang up the " obscurities," not in imagination, but in 
reality. But if they cannot be hung they must be branded — I again 



— 207 — 

epeak figuratively, referring to branding en effigie. It is true that 
H err Yon White — he is white and innocent as a lily — tried to white- 
wash over my assertion, in Berlin, that he had really been branded. 
On account of this, the fool had himself inspected by the authorities, 
and obtained from them a certificate that his back bore no marks., 
and he was pleased to regard this negative certificate of arms as 
a diploma, which would open to him the doors of the best society, 
and was astonished when they kicked him out- — and now he screams 
death and murder at me, poor devil ! and swears to shoot me 
wherever he finds me. And what do you suppose, Madame, that I 
intend doing ? Madame, from this fool — that is, from the money 
which I intend to write out of him — I will buy me a good barrel of 
Rudesheimer Rhine wine. I mention this, that you may not think it 
is a malicious joy which lights up my face whenever I meet the Herr 
Yon White in the street. In fact, I only see in him my blessed 
Rudesheimer, — the instant I set eyes on him I become cheerful and 
genial hearted, and begin to trill, in spite of myself, " Upon the 
Rhine, 'tis there our grapes are growing," " This picture is enchant- 
ing fair," " Oh, White Lady." Then my Rudesheimer looks horribly 
sour — enough to make oue believe that he was compounded of noth- 
ing but poison and gall — but I assure you, Madame, it is a genuine 
vintage, and though the inspector's mark be not branded on it, the 
connoisseur still knows how to appreciate it. I will merrily tap this 
cask, and should it chance to ferment and threaten to fly out danger- 
ously, I will have it bound down with a few iron hoops, by the pro- 
per authorities. 

You see, therefore, Madame, that you need not trouble yourself 
on my account. I can look at ease on all in this world. The Lord 
has blessed me in earthly goods, and if he has not exactly stored the 
wine away for me, in my cellar, he at least allows me to work in his 
vineyard. I only need gather my grapes, press them, barrel them, 
and there I have my clear heavenly gift, and if fools do not 'fly 
exactly roasted into my mouth, but run at me rather raw, and 
not even "half baked," still I know how to roast them, baste them, 
and " give them pepper," until they are tender and savoury. Oh, 
Madame, but you will enjoy it when I some day give a grand fete ' 
Madame, you shall then praise my kitchen. You shall confess that 
I can entertain my satraps as pompously as once did the great 
Ahasuerus, when he was king from India even unto the Blacks, over 
one hundred and seven and twenty provinces. I will slaughter whole 
hecatombs of fools. That great Philoschnaps, who came, as Jupi- 



— 208 — 

ter, m the form of an ox,* lusted for favor in the eyes of Europa. will 
supply the roast beef; a tragical tragedian, who, on the stage, when 
it represented a tragical Persian kingdom, exhibited to us a tragical 
Alexander, will supply my table with a splendid pig's head, grinning, 
as usual, sourly sweet, with a slice of lemon in his mouth, and 
shrewdly decked, by the artistic cook, with laurel leaves ; while that 
singer of coral lips, swan necks, bounding, snowy little hills, little 
things, little legs, little kisses, and little assessors, namely, H. Clau- 
rex, or, as the pious Berharder girls cry after him on the Fredrick's 
street, " Father Claueex ! our Claurex !" will supply me with all 
the dishes which he knows how to describe so juicily in his annual 
Little pocket bawdy houses, with all the imagination of a lusciously 
longing kitchen maid. And he shall give us, over a"nd above, an 
altogether extra little dish, with a little plate of celery, " for which 
the little heart bounds with love !" A shrewd dried-up maid of 
honor, whose head is the only part of her which is now of any use, 
will give us a similar dish, namely, asparagus, and there will be no 
want of Grottingen sausages, Hamburg smoked beef, Pomeranian 
geese-breasts, ox-tongues, calves' brains, " cheek," " gudgeons," 
" cakes," " small potatoes," and therewith all sorts of jellies, Berlin 
pan-cakes, Vienna tarts, comfits — 

Madame, I have already, in imagination, over-eaten myself! The 
Devil take such gormandizing ! I cannot bear much — the pig's 
head acts on me as on the rest of the German public — I must eat a 
TTillibald Alexis salad on it — that purges and purifies. 0, the 
wretched pig's head ! with the still wretcheder sauce, which has 
neither a Grecian nor a Persian flavor, but which tastes like tea and 
soft soap ! — Bring me my plump millionaire ! 



CHAPTER XT. 



Madame. I observe a faint cloud of discontent on your lovely brow, 
and you seem to ask if it is not wrong that I should thus dress foc;s, 
stick them on the spit, carbonado them, lard them, and even butcher 
many which must lie untouched save by the fowls of the air, while 
widows and orphans cry for want ? 



*An "ox," ivhen used as an abusive epithet, signifies, in German, much the same 6ft 
an ass. 



— 209 — 

Madame, cest la guerre! But now I will solve you the whole riddle. 
I myself am by no means one of the wise ones, but I have joined their 
party, and now for five thousand five hundred and eighty-eight years we 
have been carrying on war with the fools. The fools believe that they 
have been wronged by us, inasmuch as they believe that there was once 
in the world but a certain determined quantity of reason, which was 
thievishly appropriated — the Lord only knows .how — by the wise men, 
and it is a sin which cries to heaven, to see how much sense one man 
often gets, while all his neighbors, and, indeed, the whole country for 
miles around, is fairly befogged with stupidity. This is the veritable 
secret cause of war, and it is most truly a war of defence. The intelli- 
gent show themselves, as usual, the calmest, most moderate and most 
intelligent — they sit firmly fortified behind their ancient Aristotelian 
works, have much ordnance, and also amunition, in store — for they 
themselves were the inventors of powder — and now and then 
they shoot a well-aimed bomb among their foes. But, unfortunately, 
the latter are by far the most numerous, and their outcries are terri- 
ble, and day by day they do the most cruel dee ds of torture — for, in 
fact, every folly is a torture to the wise. Their military stratagems 
are often very cunning indeed. Some of the chiefs of the great 
Fool Army, take good care not to admit the secret origin of the 
war. They have heard that a well known deceitful man, who 
advanced so far in the art of falsehood, that he ended by writing false 
memoirs — I mean Fouche — once asserted that les paroles sontfaites 
pour nous cacher nos pensSes ; and therefore they talk a great deal in 
order to conceal their want of thought, and make long speeches, and 
write big books — and if any one is listening, they praise that only 
spring of true happiness, namely, wisdom ; and if any one is looking 
on at them, they work away at mathematics, logic, statistics, mechani- 
cal improvements, and so forth — and as a monkey is more ridiculous 
the more he resembles man, so are these fools more laughable the 
more reasonably they behave. Other chiefs of the great army are 
more open-hearted, and confess that their own share of wisdom is 
not remarkably great, and that perhaps they never had any, but they 
canuot refrain from asserting that wisdom is a very sour, bitter 
affair, and, in reality, of but little value. This may perhaps be true, 
but, unfortunately, they have not wisdom enough to prove it. They 
therefore jump at every means of vindication, discover new powers in, 
themselves, explain that these are quite as effectual as rea- 
son, and, in some cases, much more so — for instance, the feeling, 
faith, inspiration — and with this surrogate of wisdom, this poll- 

18* 



_ 210 — 

parrot reason, they console themselves, I, poor devil, am especially 
hated by them, as they assert that I originally belonged to their 
party, that I am a run-away, a fugitive, a bolter — a deserter, who has 
broken the holiest ties ; — yes, that I am a spy, who secretly reveals 
their plans, in order to subsequeatly give point to the laughter of 
the enemy, and that I myself am so stupid as not to see that the 
wise at the same time laugh at me, and never regard me as an equal. 
And there the fools speak sensibly enough. 

It is true that my party do not regard me as one of themselves, 
and often laugh at me in their sleeves. I know that right well, though 
I pretend not to observe it. But my heart bleeds within me, aud 
when I am alone, then my tears flow. I know right well that my 
position is a false one, that all I do is folly to the wise and a torment 
to the fools. They hate me, and I feel the truth of the saying, 
"Stone is heavy and sand is a burden, but the wrath of a fool is 
heavier than both." And they do not hate me without reason. 
It is perfectly true, I have torn asunder the holiest bands, when I 
might have lived and died among the fools, in the way of the law and 
of God. And oh! I should have lived so comfortably had I 
remained among them ! Even now, if I would repent, they would 
still receive me with open arms. They would invite me every day to 
dinner, and in the evening ask me to their tea parties and clubs, and 
I could play whist with them, smoke, talk politics, and if I yawned 
from time to time, they would whisper behind my back, " What 
beautiful feelings !" " a soul inspired with such faith !" — ■ permit 
me, Madame, that I hereby offer up a tear of emotion- — ah ! and 
I could drink punch with them, too, until the proper inspiration 
came, and then they would bring me in a hackney coach to my house, 
anxiously concerned lest I might catch cold, and one would quickly 
bring me my slippers, another my silk dressing gown, a third my 
white night-cap, and finally they would make me a " professor extra- 
ordinary," a president of a society for converting the heathen, or 
head calculator or director of Eoman excavations ; — and then I 
would be just the man for all this, inasmuch as I can very accurately 
distinguish the Latin declensions from the conjugations, and am not 
so apt as other people to mistake a postillion's boot for an Etruscan 
vase. My peculiar nature, my faith, my inspiration, could, besides this, 
effect much good during the prayer-meeting— viz., for myself — and 
then myTemarkable poetic genius would stand me in good stead on 
the birth-days and at the weddings of the great, nor would it be a 
bad thought if I, in a great national epic, should sing of all those 



_ 911 — 

heroes, of whom we know, with certainty, that from their mouldering 
bodies crept worms, who now give themselves out for their 
descendants. 

Many men who are not born fools, and who were once gifted with 
reason, have on this account gone over to the fools and lead among 
them a real pays du Cocdgne* life, and those follies which at first so 
pained them have now become second nature — yes, they are in fact 
no longer to be regarded as hypocrites, but as true converts. One 
of these, in whose head utter and outer darkness does not as yet 
entirely prevail, really loves me, and lately, when I was alone with 
him, he closed the door, and said, with an earnest voice, " Oh, Fool !" 
you who play the wise man and have not after all as much sense as 
a recruit in his mother's belly ! know you not that the great in 
the land only elevate those who abase themselves, and esteem their 
own blood less worthy than that of the great ? And now you would 
ruin all among the pious ! Is it then such a difficult thing to roll up 
vour eyes in a holy rapture, to hide your arms crossed in faith in 
your coat sleeve, to let your head hang down like a lamo of G-od's, 
and to murmur Bible sayings got by heart ! Believe me, no Gracious 
Highness will reward you for your godlessness, the men of Love will 
hate, abuse, and persecute you, and you will never make your way 
either in this world, or in the next !" 

Ah, me ! it is all true enough ! But I have unfortunately con- 
tracted this unlucky passion for Keason I I love her though she loves 
me not again. I give her all, she gives me naught again. I cannot 
tear myself from her. And as ones the Jewish king Solomon in his 
canticles sang the Christian Church a^d that too under the form of 
a black, love-insatiate maiden, so that his Jews might not suspect 
what he was driving at, so have I in countless lays, sung just the 
contrary, that is to say, reason, and that under the form of a white 
cold beauty, who attracts and repels me, who now smiles at me, then 
scorns me, and finally turns her back on me. This secret of my 
unfortunate love, gives you, Madame, some insight into my folly. You 



* Schlaraffenland — or in French, 'pays du Cocagne ;" in English, "the Jack Pudding 
Paradise ;"' where the pigs run about ready roasted, with puddings in their bellies, crying, 
"Come eat me!" as an old authority hath it. It was in this land that "little King 
Boggen once built a fine hall. Pie crust and pastry crust — that was the wall." (Vide 
Mother Goose's Melodies.) In maritime circles Schlaraffenland is known as " Fiddler's 
Green." RablimIS gives us an idea of it in his TheJeme, and Mahomet in his Koran, 
while a fine poem on the Fame subject occurs in most collections of Trouveur luij. — JVote 
by Translator. 



— 212 — 

doubtless, perceive that it is of an extraordinary description, and 
that it rises, magnificently rises over the ordinary follies of mankind. 
Read my Eadcliffe, my Almanzor, my lyrical Intermezzo — reason! 
reason ! nothing but reason ! — and you will be terrified at t;je immen- 
sity of my folly. In the words of Agur, I can say, " I am the most 
loolish of all mankind, and the wisdom of man is not in me." 

High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar 
the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds 
gleam the stars, — Madame, is not that too high ? eh Men — high over 
the stars sweep the angels, high over the angels rises — no, Madame, 
my folly can bring it no higher than this. It soars high enough S It 
grows giddy before its own sublimity. It makes of me a. giant in seven 
mile boots. At noon I feel as though I could devour all the elephants 
of Hindostan, and then pick my teeth with the spire of Strasburg 
cathedral ; in the evening I become so sentimental that I would fain 
drink up the Milky Way without reflecting how indigestible I should 
find the little fixed stars, and by night there is the Devil himself 
broke loose in my head and no mistake. For then there assemble in 
my brain the Assyrians, Egyptians, Medes, Persians, Hebrews, 
Philistines, Frankforters, Babylonians, Carthagenians, Berliners, 
Romans, Spartans, Flat-heads, and Chuckleheads — Madame, it would 
be too wearisome should I continue to enumerate all these people. 
Do you only read Heeodotus, Livy, the Magazine of Haude and 
Spexee, Curtius, Cornelius Nepos, the " Companion," — Meanwhile, 
I will eat my breakfast, this morning I do not get along very well 
with my writing, the blessed Lord leaves me in the lurch — Madame, 
I even fear — yes, yes, you remarked it before I did myself — yes— 
I see. This morning I have not had any of the real regular sort of 
divine aid. Madame, I will begin a new chapter, and tell you how 
after the death of Le Grand I came to Codesberg. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



When I arrived at Godesburg I sate myself once more at the feet 
of my fair frieud — and near me lay her brown hound- — and we both 
looked up into her lovely eyes. 

Ah, Lord ! in those eyes lay all the splendor of earth, and an entire 
heaven besides. I could have died with rapture as I ga:ed into them. 



and had I died at that instant my soul would have 11 own directly into 
those eyes. Oh ! they are indescribable. I must borrow some poet, 
who went mad for love, from a lunatic asylum, that he may from the 
uttermost abyss of his madness fish up some simile wherewith to com- 
pare those eyes. — (Between you and I, reader, it seems to me that I 
must be mad enough myself, to want any help in such a business.) 
" God damn it!" said an English gentleman, "when she looks at a 
man quietly from head to foot, she melts his coat buttons and heart, 
all into a lump !" " F — <?/" said a Frenchman. "Her eyes are of 
the largest calibre, and when she shoots one of her forty-two pound 
glances — crack! — there you are in love!" There was a red-headed 
lawyer from Mayence, who said that her eyes resembled two cups of 
coffee — without cream. He wished to say something sweet, and 
thought that he had done it — because he always sugared his coffee to 
death. Wretched, wretched comparisons ! I and the brown hound 
lay quietly at the feet of the fair lady, and gazed and listened. She 
sat near an old iron-gray soldier, a knightly looking man with cross- 
barred scars on his terrible brow. They both spoke of the Seven 
Mountains painted by the evening red, and the blue Rhine which 
flooded its way along in sublime tranquillity. What did we care for the 
Seven Mountains and the blue Rhine, and the snowy sail-boats which 
swam thereon, and the music which rang from one particular boat, or 
the jackass of a student who, seated in it, sang so meltingly and beau- 
tifully. I and the brown hound both gazed into the eyes of our fair 
friend, and looked at the face which came forth rosy pale from amid 
its black braids and locks, like the moon from dark clouds. The 
features were of the noblest Grecian type, the lips boldly arched, over 
which played melancholy, rapture, and child-like fantasy : and when 
she spoke, the words were breathed forth almost sighingly, and then 
again shot out impatiently and rapidly — and when she spoke, and her 
speech fell softly as snow, yet lik^ a warm genial flower shower from 
her lovely mouth — oh, then the crimson of evening fell gently over 
my soul, and through it flitted with ringing melody the memories of 
childhood, but, above all, like a fairy bell there pealed within, the 
voice of the little Veronica — and I grasped the fair hand of my lady 
friend, and pressed it to my eyes, till the ringing in my soul had passed 
away — and then I leaped up and laughed, and the hound bayed, and 
the brow of the old general wrinkled up sternly, and I sat down again 
and clasped and kissed the beautiful hand, and told and spoke of li1 tie 
Veronica. 



— 214 — 



CHAPTER XTIL 



Madame — you wish me to describe the appearance of the little 
Veronica ? But I will not. You, Madame, cannot be compelled to 
read more than you please, and I on the other hand have the right to 
write exactly what I choose. But I will now tell what the lovely hand 
was like, which I kissed in the previous chapter. 

First of all I must confess — that I was not worthy to kiss that 
hand. It was a lovely hand — so tender, so transparent, so perfumed, 
brilliant, sweet, soft, beautiful — by my faith, I must send to the 
apothecary for twelve shillings' worth of adjectives. 

On the middle finger there sat a ring with a pearl — I never saw a 
pearl which played a more sorrowful part — on the marriage finger she 

wore a ring with a blue antique I have studied archaeology in it 

for hours — on the forefinger she wore a diamond — it was a talisman, 
as long as I looked at it I was happy, for wherever it was, there too 
was the finger with its four friends — and she often struck me pw the 
mouth with all five of them. Since I was thus manipulated I believe 
fast and firm in animal magnetism.* But she did not strike hard, and 
when she struck I always deserved it by some godless speech, and as 
soon as she had struck me, she at once repented it, and took a cake, 
broke it in two, and gave me one half and the brown hound the other 
half, and smiled, and said, " Neither of you have any religion, and you 
will never be happy, and so you must be fed with cakes in this world, 
for there will be no table spread for you in Heaven." And she was 
more than half right, for in those days I was very irreligious, and read 
Thomas Paixe, the Systeme de la Nature, the " TTestphalian Adver- 
tiser,*' and Schleiermacher, letting my beard and my reason grow 
together, and had thoughts of enrolling myself among the Eationalists. 
But when that soft hand swept over my brow, my " reason" stood 
still, and sweet dreams came into my soul, and I again dreamed that 
I heard gentle songs of the Virgin Mother, and I thought on the little 
Veronica. 

Madame, you can hardly imagine how beautiful little Veronica 
looked as she lay in her little coffin. The burning candles as they 
stood around cast a glow ou the white-smiling little face, and on the 
red silk roses and rustling gold spangles with which the head and the 
little shroud were decked — good old Ursula had led me at evening 
into the silent chamber, and as I looked at the little corpse laid amid 



— 215 — 

lights and flowers on the table, I at first believed that it was a pretty 
saint's image of wax. But I soon recognized the dear face, and 
asked, smilingly, why little Veronica laid so still ? And Ursula 
said, " Because she is dead, dear F' 

And as she said, " Because she is dead" — But I will go no further 
to-day with this story, it would be too long, besides I should first 
speak of the lame magpie which hopped about the castle court-yard, 
and was three hundred years old, and then I could become regularly 
melancholy. A fancy all at once seizes on me to tell another story, 
which is a merry one, and just suits this place, for it is really the 
history itself which I propose to narrate in this book. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Night and storm raged in the bosom of the knight. The poniard 
blows of slander had struck to his heart, and as he advanced sternly 
along over the bridge of San Marco, the feeling stole over him as 
though that heart must burst and flow away in blood. His limbs 
trembled with weariness — the noble .quarry had been fiercely hunted 
during the live-long summer day — the drops fell from his brow, and 
as he entered the gondola, he sighed heavily. He sat unthinkingly 
in the black cabin of the gondola — unthinkingly the soft waves shook 
him and bore him along the well-known way to the Brenta — and as 
he stepped out before the well-known palace, he heard that the 
" Signora Laura was in the Garden." 

She stood leaning on the statue of the Laocoon, near the red-rose 
tree, at the end of the terrace, near the weeping willows, which hung 
down mournfully over the water. There she stood, smiling, a pale 
image of love, amid the perfume of roses. At the sight he suddenly 
awaked as from some terrible dream, and was at once changed to 
mildness and longing. " Signora Laura," said he, " I am wretched 
and tormented with hatred and oppression and falsehood" — and here 
he suddenly paused and stammered ; — " but I love you" — and then a 
tear of joy darted into his eye, and with palpitating heart he cried : — 
"be my own love and love me!" * * * 

There lies a veil of dark mystery over that hour, no mortal has ever 
known what Signora Laura replied, and when they ask her guardian 
angel in Heaven what took place, he hides his face, and sighs, and is 
silent. 



— 216 — 

Solitary and alone stood the knight by the statne of the Laocoon 
— his own face was not less convulsed and deathly pale, unconsciously 
he tore away the roses from the rose-tree — yes, he plucked even 
the young buds. Since that hour the rose tree never bore another 
floweret — far in the dim distance sang an insane nightingale — the 
willows whispered in agony, mournfully murmured the cool waves of 
the Brenta, night rose on high with her moon and stars — and one star, 
the loveliest of all, fell adown from Heaven ! 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Vous pleurez Madame ? 

Oh, may the eyes which shed such lovely tears long light up the 
world with their rays, and may a warm and loving hand close them 
in the hour of death ? A soft pillow, Madame, is also a very conve- 
nient thing when dying, and I trust that you will not be without it ; 
and when the fair, weary head sinks down, and the black locks fall in 
waves over the fast fading face ; oh, then, may God repay those tears 
which have fallen for me — for I myself am the knight for whom you 
wept — yes, I am the erring errant Knight of Love, the Knight of the 
Fallen Star ! 

Votis pleurez, Madame ! 

Oh, I understand those tears ! Why need I longer play a feigned 
part ? You, Madame, you yourself are that fair lady, who wept so 
softly in Godesberg, when I told the sad story of my life. Like drops 
of pearly dew over roses, the beautiful tears ran over the beautiful 
face— the hound was silent, the vesper chimes pealed far away in 
Konigs-winter, the Rhine murmured more gently, night covered the 
earth with her black mantle, and I sat at your feet, Madame, and 
looked on high into the starry heaven. At first I took your eyes 
also for two stars. But how could any one mistake such eyes for 
stars ? Those cold lights of heaven cannot weep over the misery of 
a man who is so wretched, that he cannot weep. 

And I had a particular reason for not mistaking those lovely eyes — 
for in them dwells the soul of little Veronica. 

I have reckoned it up, Madame, you we:e born on the very day on 
which Veronica died. Johanna, in Andernach, told me that I would 
find little Veronica again in Godesburg — and I found her and knew 
her at once. That was a sad chance, Madame, that you should die, 



— 211 — 

just as the beautiful game was about to begin. Since pious Ursula 
said to me, " It is death, dear," I have gone about solitary and serious 
in great picture galleries, but the pictures could not please me as 
they once did — they seemed to have suddenly faded — there was but a 
single work which retained its colour and brilliancy — you know, 
Madame, to which piece I refer : 

It is the Sultan and Sultaness of Delhi. 

" Do you remember, Madame, how we stood long hours before it, 
and how significantly good Ursula smiled, when people remarked 
that the faces in that picture so much resembled our own ? Madame, 
I find that your likeness is admirably taken in that picture, and it 
passes comprehension how the artist could have so accurately repre- 
sented you, even to the very garments which you then wore. They 
say that he was mad and must have dreamed your form. Or was 
there perhaps a soul in the great holy monkey who waited on you, in 
those days, like a page ? — in that case he must certainly remember 
the silver-grey veil, on which he once spilled red wine, and spoiled 
it, I was glad when you lost him, he did not dress you remarkably 
well, and at any rate, the European dress is much more dressy 
than the Indian — not but that beautiful women are lovely in any 
dress. Do you remember, Madame, that a gallant Brahmin — he 
looked for all the world like G-anesa, the god with an elephant's trunk, 
who rides on a mouse — once paid you the compliment that the divine 
Maneka, as she came down from Indra's golden hill to the royal 
penitent Wiswamitra, was not certainly fairer than you, Madame ? 

What — forgotten it already ! — Why it cannot be more than three 
thousand years since he said that, and beautiful women are not wont 
to so quickly forget delicate flattery. 

However, for men, the Indian dress is far more becoming than the 
European. ! my rosy-red lotus-flowered pantaloons of Delhi ! had 
I worn ye when I stood before the Signora Laura and begged for 
love — the previous chapter would have rung to a different tune ! Alas ! 
alas ! I wore straw-coloured pantaloons, which some sober Chinese 
had woven in Nankin — my ruin was woven with them — the 
threads of my destiny — and I was made miserable. 

Often there sits in a quiet old German coffee-house, a youth, silently 
sipping his cup of Mocha ; and, meanwhile, there blooms and grows 
in far distant China, his ruin, and there it is spun and woven, and 
despite the high wall of China, it knows how to find its way to the 
youth who deems it but a pair of Nankin trousers, and all unheeding, 
in the gay buoyancy of youth, he pulls them on, and is lost for ever 1 

19 



— 218 — 

And, Madame, in the little breast of a mortal, so much misery can 
hide itself, and keep itself so well hid there, that the poor man him- 
self for days together does not feel it, and is as jolly as a piper, and 

merrily dances and whistles, and trolls — lalarallala, lalarallala. 

la la la. 



CHAPTER XX. 



" She was amiable and he loved her, but he was not worthy of love, and she did not 
love him."— Old Play. 

And for this nonsensical affair you were about to shoot yourself? 

Madame, when a gentleman desires to shoot himself, he generally has 
ample reason for it — you may be certain of that. But whether he 
himself knows what these reasons are is another question. We mask 
even our miseries, and while we die of bosom wounds, we complain 
}f the tooth-ache. 

Madame, you have, I know, a remedy for the tooth-ache ? 

Alas ! I had the tooth-ache in my heart. That is a wearying pain, 
and requires plugging — with lead, and with the tooth powder invented 
by Berthold Schwartz.* 

Misery gnawed at my heart like a worm, and gnawed — the poor 
devil of a Chinese was not to blame, I brought the misery with me 
into the world. It lay with me in the cradle, and when my mother 
rocked me, she rocked it with me, and when she sang me to sleep, it 
slept with me, and it awoke when I opened my eyes. When I grew 
up, it grew with me, until it was altogether too great and burst 
my . 

Now we will speak of other things- — of virgins' wreaths, masked 

balls, of joy and bridal pleasure lalarallala, lalarallala, lalaral 

la i a la.f 



* Or Kogcr Bacon. 

t To the Bridesmaid's Chorus in Der Freyschutz. 



(1826.) 



A NEW SPRING, 



Motto: — A pine tree stands alone 

In the north — — — 

He is dreaming of a palm 
Which afar — — — 



PROLOGUE. 

Oft in galleries of Art 

On a pictured knight we glance, 
Who to battle will depart, 

Armed well with shield and lance. 

But young Cupids mocking round him, 
I3ear his lance and sword away, 

And with rosy wreaths they've bound hin^ 
Though he strives as best he may. 

Thus to pleasant fetters yielding, 

Still I turn the idle rhyme, 
While the brave their arms are wielding 

In the mighty strife of Time. 



1 



When 'neath snow-white branches sitting, 
Far thou nearest the wild-wind chidiug, 

Seest the silent clouds above thee, 
In their wintry garments hiding ; 

See'st that all seems cold and death-like, 
Wood and plain lie shorn before thee, 

E'en thy heart is still and frozen, 
Winter round and winter o'er thee. 
f219) 



— 220 — 

All at once adown come falling 

Pure white flakes, and then thou grievest, 
That the weary, dreary winter 

Should return, as thou believest. 

But those are not snow-flakes falling, 
Soon thou mark'st with pleasant wonder 

That they all are perfumed blossoms, 
From the tree thou sittest under, 

What a thrilling sweet amazement ! 

Winter turns to May and pleasure; 
Snow is changed to lovely spring flowers, 

And thou find'st a new heart's treasure. 



In the wood all softly greeneth, 
As if maiden-like 'twould woo thee; 

And the sun from Heaven smileth : 
" Fair young spring, a welcome to thee T* 

Nightingale ! I hear thy singing, 
As thou flutest, sweetly moving, 

Sighing long-drawn notes of rapture, 
And thy song is all of loving. 



The lovely eyes of the young spring night, 

So softly down are gazing — 
Oh, the Love which bore thee down with might, 

Ere long will thy soul be raising. 

All on yon linden sits and sings, 

The nightingale soft trilling ; 
And as her music in me rings, 

My soul with love is thrilling. 



— 221 — 
4. 

I love a fair flower, but I know not its name ; 

Oh, sorrow and smart ! 
I look in each flower-cup — my luck is the same : 

For I seek for a heart. 

The flowers breathe their perfumes — in evening's red shiLe, 

The nightingale trills. 
I seek for a heart which is gentle as mine, 

Which as tenderly thrills. 

The nightingale sings, and I know what she says 

In her beautiful song : 
We both are love weary and lorn in our lays, 

And oh ! sorrow is long. 



Sweet May lies fresh before us, 
To life the young flowers leap, 

And through the Heaven's blue o'er us 
The rosy cloudlets sweep. 

The nightingale is singing, 

Adown from leafy screen, 
And young white lambs are springing 

In clover fresh and green. 

I cannot be singing and springing, 

I lie on the grassy plot, 
I hear a far distant ringing, 

I dream and I know not what. 



6, 



Softly ring and through me spring, 
The sweetest tones to-day ; 

Gently ring, small song of spring, 
King out and far away. 
19* 



— 222 — 

King and roam unto the home, 
Where violets you see, 

And when unto a rose you come, 
Oh, greet that rose for me 



The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose, 

And flirted around all day ; 
While round him in turn with her golden caress, 

Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray. 

But who was the lover the rose smiled on, 
Dwelt he near the sweet lady or far ? 

And was it the clear-singing nightingale, 
Or the bright distant Evening Star. 

I know not with whom the rose was in love, 
But I know that I loved them all. 

The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray, 
The star and the bird's sweet call. 



8, 



Yes — all the trees are musical 
Soft notes the nests inspire ; 

Who in the green wood orchestra 
Leads off the tuneful choir ? 

Is it yon grey old lapwing, 
Who nods so seriously ; 

Or the pedant who cries "cuckoo" 
In time, unweariedly ? 

Is it the stork who sternly 
As though he lead the band, 

Claps with his legs, while music 
.Pipes sweet on either hand ? 



— 223 — 

No — in my heart is seated 

The one who rules those tones, 

As my heart throbs he times them, 
And Love's the name he owns. 



9. 



'In the beginning sweetly sang 

The nightingale in love's firs'; louts, 

And as she sang, grew every where 
Blue violets, grass, and apple-flowers. 

'She bit into her breast — out run 

The crimson blood, and from its shower 

The first red-rose its life begun, " 
To which she sings of love's deep power. 

'And all the birds which round us trill, 

Are saved by that sweet blood they say ; 
And if the rose song rang no more, 
Then all were lost and passed away.' 

Thus to his little nestlings spoke 
The sparrow in the old oak tree ; 

Dame sparrow oft his lecture broke, 
Throned in her brooding dignity. 

She leads a kind, domestic life, 

And nurses well with temper good ; 

To pass his time, the father gives 
Religious lessons to his brood. 



10. 

The warm, bewildering spring night-air 
Wakes flowrets on the plain ; 

And oh, my heart, beware, beware, 
Or thou wilt love again. 



— 224 — 

But say — what flower on hill, or dale, 
Will snare this willing heart ? 

I'm cautioned by the nightingale 
Against the lily's art. 



1L 

Trouble and torment — I hear the bells ring ? 

And oh ! to my sorrow, I've lost my poor head ! 
Two beautiful eyes, and the fresh growing spring, 

Have plotted to capture me, living or dead. 

The beautiful spring, and two lovely young eyes, 
Once more this poor heart in their meshes have got 

The rose and the nightingale — yonder she flies, 
Are deeply involved in this terrible plot. 



12. 

Ah me, for tears I'm burning, 
Soft, sorrowing tears of love, 

Yet, I fear this wild, sad yearning, 
But too well my heart will move. 

Ah ! Love's delicious sorrow, 
And Love's too bitter joy 

With its heavenly pains, ere morrow 
Will my half-won peace destroy. 



13. 

The spring's blue eyes are open, 
Up from the grass they look ; 

I mean the lovely violets, 
Which for a wreath I took. 

I plucked the flowers while thinking, 
And my thoughts in one sad tale, 

To the breezes were repeated, 
By the listening nightingale, 



— 225 — 

Yes — every thought she warbled, 
As from my soul it rose, 

And now my tender secret, 
The whole green forest knows. 



14. 

When thou didst pass beside me, 
Thy soft touch thrilled me through, 

Then my heart leaped up and wildly 
On thy lovely traces flew. 

Then thou didst gaze upon me, 
With thy great eyes looking back, 

And my heart was so much frightened, 
It scarce could keep the track. 



15. 



The graceful water-lily 

Looks dreamily up from the lake, 
And the moon looketh lovingly on her, 

For light love keeps fond hearts awake. 

Then she bows her small head to the water, 
Ashamed those bright glances to meet, 

And sees the poor, pale lily lovers 
All lying in love at her feet. 



16. 

If thou perchance good eye-sight hast, 
When with my works thou'rt playing, 

Thou'lt see a beauty, up and down 
Among the ballads straying. 

And if perchance good ears are thine 
Oh, then thou may'st rejoice, 

And thy heart may be bewildered, 
With her laughing, sighing voice. 



— 22(5 — 

And well I ween with glance and word 
Full sore she'll puzzle thee, 

And thou'lt go dreaming round in love 
As once it chanced to me. 



17. 

"What drives thee around in the warm spring night, 
Thou hast driven the flowers half crazy with fright ; 

The violets no longer are sleeping, 
The rose in her night-dress is blushing so red, 
The lilies — poor things — sit so pale in their bed 

They are crying and trembling and weeping. 

Ah, dearest moon ! how gentle and good 

Are all these fair flowers — in truth I've been rude ; 

I've been making sad work with my walking : 
But how could I know they were lurking around, 
"When bewildered with love 1 strayed over the ground, 

And to the bright planets was talking. 



' 18. 

When thy blue eyes turn on me, 
And gaze so soft and meek, 

Such dreamy moods steal o'er me, 
That I no word can speak. 

I dream of those blue glances, 
When we are far apart, 

And a sea of soft blue memories 
Comes pouring o'er my heart. 



19. 

Once again my heart is living, 
And old sorrows pass away ; 

Once again the tenderest feelings 
Seem reviving with the May. 



— 227 -r- 

Evening late and morning early 

Through, the well-known paths I rove, 

Peeping under every bonnet. 
Looking for the face I love. 

Once again I'm by the river, 
On the bridge as in a trance ; 

What if she came sailing by me, 
What if I should meet her glance ! 

Now once more 'mid falling water, 
Gentle wailings seem to play, 

And my heart in beauty catches 
All the snow-white waters say. 

And once more I dreaming wander 
Through the green wood dark and cool, 

While the birds among the bushes 
Mock me — poor enamoured fool. 



20. 

The rose breathes perfumes — but if she has feeling 
Of what she breathes, or if the nightingale 

Feels in herself what through our souls is stealing 
When her soft notes are quivering through the valo— 

I do not know — yet oft we're discontented 
With Truth itself! and nightingale and rose, 

Although their feelings be but lies invented, 
Still have their use as many a story shows. 



2L 

Because I love thee 'tis my duty 
To shun thy face — nay anger not ; 

Would it agree — that dream of beauty 
With my pale face so soon forgot ? 



— 228 — 

But ere I leave thee, let me tell thee, 
'Twas all through love this hue I got, 

And soon its pallor must repel thee, 
And so I'll leave — nay, anger not ! 



22. 

Amid the flowers I wander, 
And blossoms as they blow ; 

I wander as if dreaming, 
Uncertain where I go. 

Oh. hold me fast, thou dearest — 
I'm drunk with love, d'ye see. 

Or at your feet I'll fall, love, 
And yonder is company. 



23. 

As the moon's reflection trembles 
In the wild and wavering deeps, 

While the moon herself in silence, 
O'er the arch of heaven sweeps. 

Even so I see thee — loved one, 
Calm and silent, and there moves 

But thine image in my bosom, 

For my heart is thrilled and loves. 



24. 

When both our hearts togethei, 
The holy alliance made ; 

They understood each other, 
And mine on thine was laid. 

But oh — the poor young rose-bud, 
Which lay just underneath, 

The minor, weaker ally, 

Was almost crushed to death. 



— 229 — 
25. 

Tell me who first invented the clocks 
Classing the hours and the minutes in flocks ? 
That was some shivering, sorrowful man — 
Deep into midnight his reveries ran, 
While he counted the nibbling of mice 'round the hall, 
And the notes of the death-watch which ticked in the wall 

Tell me who first invented a kiss ? 
Oh, that was some smiling young mouth, full of bliss, 
It kissed without thinking and still kissed away, 
'Twas all in the beautiful fresh month of May, 
Up from the earth the young blossoms sprung, 
The sunbeams were shining the merry birds sung. 



26. 

How the sweet pinks breathe their perfumes, 
How the stars, a wondrous throng, 

Like gold bees o'er the blue heaven, 
Brightly shining, pass along. 

From the darkness of the chestnuts 
Gleams the farm-house white and fair ; 

I can hear its glass-doors rustle, 
And sweet voices whispering there. 

Gentle trembling- — sweet emotion, 

Frightened white arms round me cling, 

And the sweet young roses listen, 
While the nightingales soft sing. 



27. 

H ave I not dreamed this self-same dream 

Ere now in happier hours ? 
Those trees the very same do seem, 

Love-glances, kisses, flowers. 
20 



— 230 — 

Was it not here that calm and cold, 
The moon looked down in state ? 

Did not these marble gods then hold 
Their watch beside the gate ? 

Alas ! I know how sadly change 
These all-too-lovely dreams ; 

And as with snowy mantle strange 
All, chill enveloped seems. 

So we ourselves grow calm and cold, 

Break off and live apart ; 
Yes, we — who loved 80 well of old 

And kissed with heart to heart. 



28- 

Kisses which we steal in darkness 
And in darkness give again ; 

Oh, such kisses — how they rapture 
A poor soul in living pain. 

Half foreboding, half remembering 
Thoughts through all the spirit roam ; 

Many a dream of days long vanished, 
Many a dream of days to come. 

But to thus be ever thinking, 
Is unthinking, when we kiss ; 

Rather weep, thou gentle darling, 
For our tears we never miss. 



29. 

There was an old, old monarch, 
His head was gray, and sad his life ; 

Alas, the poor old monarch, 
He married a fair young wife. 



— 231 — 

There was a handsome stripling, 

Blonde were his locks, and light his mien ; 
He bore the train — the silken train, 

All of the fair young queen. 

Know'st thou the old, old ballad, 

It ringeth like a passing bell ; 
The queen and page must die — alas ! 

They loved — and all too well. 



30. 

Again in my memory are blooming, 

Fair pictures long faded away ; 
Oh, where in thy voice is the mystery, 

Which moves me so deeply to-day. 

Oh, say not, I pray, that thou lov'st me, 
The fairest that Nature can frame ; 

The spring time — and with it the spring-love, 
Must end in warm passion and shame. • 

Oh, say not, I pray, that thou lovest me, 

And kiss and be silent, I pray, 
And smile when I show thee to-morrow 

The roses all faded away. 



31. 

Linden blossoms drunk with moonlight, 

Melt away in soft perfume ; 
And the nightingales with carols 

Thrill the air amid the bloom. 

Oh, but is't not sweet, my loved one, 
Thus 'neath linden boughs to sit, 

While the golden flashing moon -rays, 
Through the perfumed foliage flit. 



— 232 — 

Every linden leaf above us, 
Like a heart is shaped we see, 

Therefore, dearest, lovers ever 
Sit beneath the linden tree. 

But thou smilest as if wandering 
In some distant, longing dream ; 

Tell me dearest — with what visions 
Doth thy busy fancy teem ? 

Gladly will I tell thee, dear one, 
What I fancied — I would fain 

Feel the North wind blowing o'er us 
And the white snow fall again — 

And that we. in furs warm folded 
In a sleigh sat side by side, 

Bells wild ringing — whips loud crackia 
As o'er flood and fields we glide. 



32. 

In the moonshine — through the forest, 
Once I saw the fairies bounding, 

Heard their elfin bells soft ringing, 
Heard their little trumpets sounding 

Every snow-white steed was bearing 
Golden stag-horns, and they darted 

Head-long on, like frighted wild fowl, 
From their far companions parted. 

But the Elf Queen smiled upon me, 
Sweetly as she passed before me ; 

Was't the omen of a new love, 

Or a sign that death hangs o'er me ? 



— 233 — 
33. 

I'll send thee violets to-morrow, 

Fresh dripping from the dewy showers ; 

At eve again I'll bring thee roses, 

Which I have plucked in twilight hours. 

And know'st thou what the lovely blossom 

To thee — sub rosa — fain would say ? 
They mean that thou through night shouldst love me, 

Yet still be true to me by day. 



34. 

Thy letter, fickle rover, 
Will cause no tearful song ; 

Thou sayest that all is over, 
And the letter is over long. 

Twelve pages filled completely, 
A perfect book, my friend ; 

Oh, girls don't write so neatly 
When they the mitten send. 



35. 

Do not fear lest I, unconscious, 
Tell my love to those around — 

Though my songs with many a figure 
Of thy beauty still abound. 

In a wondrous flowering forest 
Lies well hidden, cowering low, 

All the deeply burning mystery, 
All its secret, silent glow. 

If suspicious flames should quiver 
Mid the roses — let them be ; 

No one now believes in flames, love, 
But they call them — poetry. 
20* 



— 234 — 
36. 

As by daylight, so at midnight, 

Spring thoughts in my soul are teeming, 

Like a verdant echo, ever 

In me ringing, in me beaming. 

Then in dreams as in a legend, 

Songs of birds are round me trilling, 

Yet far sweeter, wild in passion, 
Yiolet breath the air is filling. 

Every rose seems ruddier blushing 
'Neath a glory, child-like golden, 

As in glowing Gothic pictures, 
Worn by angels fair and olden. 

And I seem as if transformed • 

To a nightingale, soft singing, 
"While unto a rose — my loved one — 

Dream-like, strange, my notes are ringing. 

Till the sun's bright glances wake me, 

Or the merry jargoning 
Of those other pleasant warblers 

Who before my window sing. 



37. 

With their small gold feet the planets 
Step on tip-toe soft and light, 

Lest they wake the earth below them 
Sleeping on the breast of night. 

Listening stand the silent forests, 
Every leaf a soft green ear, 

While the mountain as if dreaming. 
Holds its arms to cloudlets near. 

But what calls me ? In my bosom 
Rings a soft and flute-like wail, 

Was't the accents of the loved one, 
Was it but the nightingale. 



— 235 — 

38. 

Ah, spring is sad, and there is sadness 
In all its dreams, the flower-decked vale 

Seems sorrowful. I hear no gladness 
E'en from the singing nightingale. 

Smile not so brightly then my dearest. 
Ah, do not smile so sweet to-day, 

Oh rather weep — but if thou fearest 
I'm cold — I'll kiss those tears away. 



39. 

And from the heart I loved so dearly, 
By cruel fate I'm torn away 

From that dear heart I loved so dearly 
Ah knewest thou how fain I'd stay. 

The coach rolls on — the bridges thunder 
Beneath I see the dark flood swell, 

I'm parted from that loveliest wonder 
That heart of hearts I love so well. 



40. 

Our sweetest hopes rise blooming. 

And then again are gone, 
They bloom and fade alternate, 

And so it goes rolling on. 

I know it, and it troubles 
My life, my love, my rest, 

My heart is wise and witty, 

And it bleeds within my breast. 



— 236 — 
41* 

Like an old man stern in feature, 
Heaven above me seems to glare, 

His burning eyes surrounded 
With grisly cloudy hair. 

And when on earth he's gazing, 
Flower and leaf must wilt away, 

Love and song must wither with them 
In man's heart — ah, well-a-day ! 



42. 

With bitter soul my poor sad heart still galling, 
I go aweary through this world so cold, 
Lo, autumn endeth and the mists enfold 

The long dead landscape as with heavy walling. 

Loud pipe the winds, as if in frenzy calling 
To the red leaves which here and there are rolled, 
The lorn wood sighs, fogs clothe the barren wold, 

And worst of all, I b'lieve the rain is falling. 



43. 

Late autumnal cloud-cold fancies, 
Spread like gauze o'er dale and hill, 

And no more the green leaf dances 
On the branches — ghost-like still. 

And amid the grove there's only 

One sad tree, as yet in leaf, 
Damp with sorrow's tears and lonely, 

How his green head throbs with grief. 

Ah, my heart is all in keeping 

With yon scene — the one tree there — 
Summer-green, yet sadly weeping, 

Is thine image lady-fair. 









— 237 — 
44. 

Gray and week-day looking Heaven ! 

E'en the city looks dejected ; 
Gruni as if no plans had thriven, 

In the Elbe it stands reflected. 

Snubbed noses — snubbing 1 , sneezing, 
Are ye cut as once — and cutting ? 

Are the saints still mild appearing, 
Or puffed up and proudly strutting ? 

Lovely South, how bright and towering, 
Seem thy heavens and gods together 

Now I see this vile offscouring 
Of base mortals and their weather 



ITALY 



(1828.) 



u Hafiz and Ulrich Riitten, too, 

Must don their arms, and get to blows, 

Against the cowls, both brown and blue, 

— My fate like other Christians' goes." 

Goethe. 



1. 

JOURNEY FEOM MUNICH TO GENOA. 

" A noble soul never comes into your reckoning; and it is that which to-day has foun- 
dered your wisdom. (He opens his desk, and takes out two pistols, of which he loads ona 
and lays the other on the table.)" 

Robert's " Power of Circumstancts." 



CHAPTER I. 

I am the politest man in the world. I enjoy myself in tho reflec- 
tion that I have never been rude in this life, where there are so 
many intolerable scamps, who take yon by the button, and drawl out 
their grievances, or even declaim their poems — yes, with true Chris- 
tian patience have I ever listened to their misereres, without betray- 
ing, by a glance, the intensity of ennui, and of boredom, into which 
my soul was plunged. Like unto a penitential martyr of a Brahmin, 
who offers up his body to devouring vermin, so that the creatures 
(also created by God) may satiate their appetites, so have I, for a 
whole day, taken my stand, and calmly listened as I grinned and bore 
the chattering of the rabble, and my internal sighs were only 
heard by Him who rewards virtue. 

But the wisdom of daily life enjoins politeness, and forbids- a vexed 
silence or a vexatious reply, even when some chuckle-headed '* Com- 

(238) 



- 239 — 

raercial Councillor," or barren-brained cheesemonger, makes a set at 
us, beginning a conversation common to all Europe with the words, 
u Fine weather to-day." No one knows but that we may meet that 
same Philistine again, when he may wreak bitter vengeance on us for 
not politely replying, " It is very fine weather." Nay, it may even 
happen, dear reader, that thou mayest, some fine day, come to sit by 
the Philistine aforesaid, in the inn at Cassel, and at the table d'hote — 
even by his left side, when he is exactly the very man who has the 
dish with a jolly brown carp in it, which he is merrily dividing among 
the many ; — if he now chance to have some ancient grudge against 
thee, he pushes away the dish to the right, so that thou gettest not 
the smallest bit of tail — and therewith canst not carp at all. For, 
alas ! thou art just the thirteenth at table, which is always an 
unlucky thing when thou sittest at the left hand of the carver, and 
the dish goes around to the right. And to get no carp is a great 
evil ; perhaps, next to the loss of the national cockade, the greatest 
of all. The Philistine, who has prepared this evil, now mocks thee 
with a heavy grin, offering thee the laurel leaves which lie in the 
brown sauce — alas ! what avail laurels, if you have no carp with 
them ! — and the Philistine twinkles his eyes, and snickers, and whis- 
pers, " Fine weather to-day !" 

Ah ! dear soul, it may even happen to thee that thou wilt, at last, 
come to lie in some churchyard next to that same Philistine, and 
when, on the Day of Judgment, thou hearest the trumpet sound, 
and sayest to thy neighbor, " Good friend, be so kind as to reach me 
your hand, if you please, and help me to stand up — my left leg is 
asleep with this damned long lying still !" — then thou wilt suddenly 
remember the well known Philistine laugh, and wilt hear tho mock- 
ing tones of " Fine weather to-day !" 



CHAPTER II. 



" Foin-e wey-ther to-day — " 

Oh, reader, if you could only have heard the tone — the incompara- 
ble trouble-base — in which these words were uttered, and cdfald have 
seen the speaker himself — the arch - prosa ; c, widow's-saving-bank 
countenance, the stupid -cute eyelets, the cocked-up, cunning, investi- 
gating nose — you would have at once said, " This flower grew on no 
common sand, and these tones are in the dialect of Charlottenburg, 



— 240 — 

where the tongue of Berlin is spoken even better than in Berlin 
itself. 

I am the politest man in the world. I love to eat brown carps, 
and I believe in the resurrection. Therefore I replied, " In fact, the 
weather is very fine." 

When the Son of the Spree heard that, he grappled boldly on me, 
and I could not escape from his endless questions, to which he him- 
self answered ; nor, above all, from his comparisons between Berlin 
and Munich, which latter city he would not admit had a single good 
hair growing on it. 

I, however, took the modern Athens under my protection, being 
always accustomed to praise the place where I am. Friend reader, 
if I did this at the expense of Berlin, you will forgive me, when I 
quietly confess that it was done out of pure policy, for I am fully 
aware that if I should ever begin to praise my good Berliners, my 
renown would be forever at an end among them. For they would 
begin at once to shrug their shoulders, and whisper to one another, 
" The man must be uncommonly green — he even praises us !" No 
town in the world has so little local patriotism as Berlin. A thou- 
sand miserable poets have, it is true, long since celebrated Berlin, 
both in prose and in rhyme, yet no cock in Berlin crowed their praise 
and no hen was cooked for them, and " under the Lindens" they were 
esteemed miserable poets as before. On the other hand, as little 
notice is taken when some bastard rhymer lets fly in parabasal 
directly at Berlin. But let any one dare to write anything against 
Polknitz, Insbruck, Schilda, Posen, Kr'ahwinkel, or other capital 
cities ! How the patriotism of the said places would bristle up ! 
The reason of which is : Berlin is no real town, but simply a place 
where many men, and among them men of intelligence assemble, who 
are utterly indifferent as to the place ; and these persons form the 
intelligent world of Berlin. The stranger who passes through sees 
but the far-stretching, uniform-looking houses, the long, broad streets, 
built by the line and level, and, very generally, by the will of some 
particular person, but which afford no clue to the manner of think- 
ing of the multitude. Only Sunday childrenf can ever guess at the 
private state of mind of the dwellers therein, when they behold the 

* Parabasen — irapapacis. In the ancient comedy, a passage addressed directly to the 
audience. Schola. Aristoph., Nub. 514. — [Note by Translator.'] 

f Sunday Children. — Those who are born on Sunday are supposed, in Germany, to be 
better able to see gbosts, and to hove a greater insight into spiritual mysteries than other 
people. 



— 241 - 

1'Hig rows of houses, which, like the men themselves, seem striving 
to get as far apart as possible, as if they were staring at each other 
with mutual viudictiveness. Only once — one moonlight night — as I 
returned home late from Luther and Wegener, I observed that the 
harsh, hard mood had melted into mild sorrow, and that, in reconcilia- 
tion, they would fain leap into each other's arms ; so that I, poor 
mortal, who was walking through the middle of the street, feared to 
be squeezed to death. Many would have found this fear laughable, 
and I myself laughed at it when I, the next morning, wandered 
soberly through the same scene, and found the houses yawning as pro- 
saically at each other as before. It is true that it requires several 
bottles of poetry, if a man wishes to see anything more in Berlin 
than dead houses and Berliners. Here it is hard to see ghosts. The 
town contains so few antiquities, and is so new ; and yet all this 
" new" is already so old, so withered and dead. For, as I said, it has 
grown, in a great degree, not from the intellect of the people, but 
from that of individuals. Frederick the Great is of course the most 
eminent among these. What he discovered was the firm foundation, 
and had nothing been built in Berlin since his death, we should have 
had a historic monument of the soul of that prosaic, wondrous hero, 
who, with down-right German bravery, set forth in himself the refined 
insipidity and flourishing freedom of intelligence, the shallowness and 
the excellence of his age. Potsdam, for instance, seems to be such 
a monument ; amid its deserted streets we wander among the writ- 
ings of the philosopher of Sans Souci — it belongs to his oeuvres 
posthnmes, and though it is now but petrified waste paper, and looks 
ridiculous enough, we still regard it with earnest interest, and sup- 
press an occasional smile, when it rises, as if we feared a sudden 
blow across our backs from the Malacca cane of " old Fritz." But 
such feelings never assail us in Berlin ; we there feel that old Fritz 
and his Malacca cane have lost their power, or else there would not 
peep so many a sickly, stupid countenance from the old enlightened 
windows of the healthy town of reason, nor would so many stupid, 
superstitious houses have settled down among the old skeptical, 
philosophical dwellings. I would not be misunderstood, and expressly 
remark that I am not here in any wise snapping at the new Werder 
church — that gothic temple in revived proportions — which has been 
put, out of pure irony, between modern buildings, in order to alle- 
gorically indicate how childish and stupid it would appear if any one 
were desirous of reviving the long obsolete institutions of the Mid- 
dle Ages among the new formations of a modern day. 

21 



— 242 — 

The above remarks are applicable only to the exterior of Berlin, 
and if any one wishes to compare Munich, in this relation, to Berlin, 
he may safely assert that it forms its very opposite. For Munich is 
a town built by the people in person, and by one generation after 
another, whose peculiar spirit is still visible in their architectural 
works ; so that we behold there, as in the witch scene in Macbeth, a 
chronological array of ghosts, from the dark red spectre of the Mid- 
dle Ages, who, in full armor, steps forth from some ecclesiastical 
Gothic door-way, down to the accomplished and light-footed sprite 
of our own age, who holds out to us a mirror, in which every one com- 
placenty beholds himself reflected. In all these scenes there is some- 
thing which reconciles our feelings ; that which is barbaric does not 
disturb us, and the old-fashioned does not seem repugnant, when we 
are brought to regard it as a beginning to that which comes after, 
and as a necessary transition state. We are cast into an earnest, 
but not unpleasant, state of mind, when we gaze upon that barbaric 
cathedral,* which rises, like a colossal boot-jack, over the entire city, 
and hides in its bosom the shadows and ghosts of the Middle Ages. 
With as little impatience — yes, with quizzical ease — we regard the 
brick-in-their-hat-looking castles of a later period — those plump Ger- 
man imitations of polished French unnaturalness, the stately dwel- 
lings of tastelessness, madly ornamental and flourishing from with- 
out, and still more filagreeishly decorated within with screamingly 
variegated allegories, gilt arabesques, stuccoes, and those paintings 
wherein the late nobility, of happy memory, are represented — the 
cavaliers with red, tipsy-sober faces, over which the long wigs fall 
down like powdered lion's manes — the ladies with stiff toupees, steel 
corsets, which pressed their hearts together, and immense travelling 
jackets, which gave them an all the more prosaic continuation. As 
remarked, this view does not untune us ; it contributes all the more 
to make us rightly appreciate the present, and, when we behold the 
new works near the old, we feel as if a heavy wig had been lifted 
from our heads, and steel links unbound from about our hearts. I 
here speak only of the genial temples of art, and noble palaces, which 
in bold splendor have bloomed forth from the spirit of the great 
master, Klenze. 



*This vast structure, "the Church of Our Lady," is built entirely of large brick, and 
was erected in 1488. It is remarkable for its two dome-capped towers, 333 feet in height, 
Within this church is the vast bronze tomb of the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. — [Note 
by Translator.] 



— 243 



CHAPTER III. 

But after all, between you and I, reader, when it comes to calling 
the whole town " a new Athens," the designation is a little absurd, 
and it costs me not a little trouble to represent it in this light. This 
went home to my very heart in the dialogue with the Berlin Philis- 
ter, who, though he had conversed for some time with me, was unpo- 
lite enough to find an utter want of the first grain of Attic salt in 
the new Athens. 

4< That," he cried, tolerably loudly, " is only to be found in Berlin. 
There, and there only, is wit and irony. Here they have good white 
beer — but no irony." 

"No — we haven't got irony," cried Nannerl, the pretty, well 
formed waiting-maid, who at this instant sprang past us — "but you 
can have any other sort of beer." 

It grieved me to the heart that Nannerl should take irony to be 
any sort of beer, were it even the best brew of Stettin, and to pre- 
vent her from falling in future into such errors, I began to teach her 
after the following wise :■ — " Pretty Nannerl, irony is not beer, but 
an invention of the Berlin people — the wisest folks in the world — 
who were awfully vexed because they came too late into the world to 
invent gunpowder, and therefore undertook to find out something 
which should answer as well. Once upon a time, my dear, when a 
man had said or done something stupid, how could the matter be 
helped ? That which was done could not be undone, and people 
said that the man was an ass. That was disagreeable. In Berlin, 
where the people are shrewdest, and where the most stupid things 
happen, the people soon found out the inconvenience. The govern- 
ment took hold of the matter vigorously — only the greater blunders 
were allowed to be printed, the lesser were simply suffered in conver- 
sation—only professors and high officials could say stupid things in 
public, lesser people could only make asses of themselves in private— 
but all of these regulations were of no avail — suppressed stupidities 
availed themselves of extraordinary opportunities to come to light — 
those below were protected by those above, and the emergency was. 
terrible, until some one discovered a reactionary means, whereby 
every piece of stupidity could change its nature, and even be meta- 
morphosed into wisdom. The process is altogether simple and easy, 
and consists simply in a man's declaring that the stupid word or 



— 244 — 

deed, of which he has been guilty, was meant ironically. So. my dear 
girl, all things get along in this world — stupidity becomes irony, 
toadyism, which has missed its aim. becomes satire, natural coarse- 
ness is changed to artistic raillery, real madness is humor, ignorance 
real wit, and thou thyself art finally the Aspasia of the modern 
Athens.'" 

I would have said more, but pretty Nanneel, whom I had up to 
this point held fast by the apron string, broke away loose by main 
force, as the entire band of assembled g-uests began to roar for " a 
beer — a beer !" in stormy chorus. But the Berliner himself looked 
like irony incarnate as he remarked the enthusiasm with which the 
foaming glasses were welcomed, and after pointing to a group of 
beer-drinkers who toasted their hop-nectar, and disputed as to its 
excellence, he said, smiling, " Those are your Athenians !" 

The remarks which "he availed himself of this opportunity to 
shove in, fairly vexed me, as I must confess that at heart I cherish 
not a little love for our modern Athens, and I accordingly improved 
the occasion to intimate to my headstrong fault-finder that the idea 
had only recently occurred to us, that we were as yet raw hands at 
modern Athens-making, and that our great minds as well as the 
better educated public, are not yet so far advanced that it will bear 
looking at too closely. All as yet is in the beginning and far from 
completion. Only the lower lines of business have as yet been taken 
up, "'and it can scarcely have escaped your observation that we have 
plenty of owls, sycophants and Phryxes." Only the hig-her charac- 
ters are wanting, and therefore many a man must assume different 
parts ; for instance, our poet who sings the delicate Greek boy-love, 
ha-s also taken on him Aristophanic coarseness ; but he is capable of 
anything, and possesses everything which a great poet should, ex 
cept a few trifles, such as wit or imagination, and if he had much 
money he would be a rich man. But what we lack in quantity is 
assuredly made up to us in quality. We have but one great sculptor, 
— but he is a "Lion." We have but one great orator, but I believe 
from my soul that Demosthexes eould not thunder so loudly over 
a malt tax in Attica. And if we have never poisoned a Socrates, 
it was not because we lack poison. And if we have as yet no actual 
Demos, no entire populace of demagogues, at least we could supply 
a show sample of the article in a demagogue by profession, who in 
himself outweighs a whole pile of twaddlers, muzzlers, poltroons and 
similar blackguards— and here he is in person !" 

I cannot resist the temptation tc describe the figure which here 



— 245 - 

presented itself. I leave the question open to discussion, whether 
this figure could with justice assert that its head had any thing human 
in it, and whether it could on that account legally claim to be con- 
sidered as human. I should myself have taken this head for that of 
an ape, only out of courtesy, I will let it pass for a man's. Its cover 
was a cloth cap, shaped like Mambrino's helmet, below which hung 
down, long, stiff, black hair, which was parted in front a V enfant. 
On that side of this head, which gave itself out for a face, the Goddess 
of Vulgarity had set her seal, and that with so much force that the 
nose had been mashed flat; the depressed eyes seemed to be seeking 
this nose in vain, and to feel grieved because they could not find it ; 
an unpleasantly smelling smile played around the mouth, which was 
altogether enchanting, and by its extraordinary likeness might have 
inspired our Greek bastard poet to the most delicate " Gazelles." 
The clothes were firstly an Old German coat somewhat modified, it 
is true, by the most pressing requisitions of modern European civili- 
zation, but still in its cut recalling that worn by Arminius, in the 
Teutobergian forests, the primitive form of which has been as mys- 
teriously and traditionally preserved by a patriotic tailor's union, a? 
was once Gothic architecture by a mystical Freemason's guild. A 
white-washed collar which deeply and significantly contrasted with 
the bare old German neck, covered the collar of this famous coat — 
from the long sleeves, hung long dirty hands, and between these ap- 
peared a long, slow body, beneath which waddled two short, lively 
legs — the entire form was a drunken-sick-dizzy parody of the Apollo 
Belvidere. 

'* And that is the Demagogue of the Modern Athens !" cried the 
Berliner, with a mocking laugh. "Good Lard ! can that be a coun- 
tryman of mine ! I can hardly believe mee own eyes! — that is the 
one who — no, that is the fact !" 

"Yea, ye deluded Berliners,'' I exclaimed— not without excite- 
ment — " ye recognize not your own geniuses, and stone your prophets. 
But we can make use of all !" 

" And what will you do with this unlucky insect ?" 

" He can be used for any thing where jumping, creeping, senti- 
ment, gormandizing, piety, much old German, a little Latin, and no 
Greek at all is needed. He can really jump very well over a cane ; 
makes tables of all sorts of all possible leaps, and lists of all possible 
ways of reading' old German poetry. Withal he represents a Father- 
land's love without being in the least dangerous. For every one 
knows that he left the old German demagogues, among whom he 

21* 



— . 246 — 

accidentally once found himself very suddenly, when he found 
that there was dangei afoot, which by no means agreed with the 
Chris tian-liKe feelings of his soft heart. But since the danger has 
passed away, the martyrs suffered for their opinions, and even our 
most desperate barbers have doffed their old German coats ; the 
blooming season of our prudent rescuer of the Fatherland has really 
begun. He alone has still retained the demagogue costume and the 
phrases belonging to it, he still exalts Arminius the Cheruscan, and 
Thusnelda, as though they were blood relations, he still preserves 
his German patriotic hatred for the Latin Babeldom, against the 
invention of soap, against Thiersch's heathen Greek Grammar, against 
Quintilius Varus, against gloves, and against all men who have 
decent noses ; — and so he stands there, the wandering monument of 
a passed away time, and like the last of the Mohicans, so too does 
he remain the last of the Demagogues — of all that mighty horde. 
You therefore see how we in our Modern Athens, where demagogues 
are entirely wanting, can use this man-, We have in him a very good 
demagogue, who is so tame as to lick any boot, and eat from the 
hand hazlenuts, chestnuts, cheese, sausages — in short, will eat any 
thing given to him, and as he is the only one of his sort, we have the 
farther advantage that when he has kicked the bucket, we can stuff 
him and keep him — hide and hair — for posterity, as a specimen of the 
Last Demagogue. But, I pray you, say nothing of all this to Pro- 
fessor Liechtenstein, in Berlin, or he will reclaim him for the Zoolo- 
gical Museum, which might occasion a war between Prussia and 
Bavaria, as nothing would ever induce us to give him up. Already 
the English are on the qui vive, and bid two thousand seven hundred 
and seventy guineas for him ; already the Austrians have offered a 
giraffe for him ; but our ministry has expressly declared that the Last 
of the Demagogues shall, not be sold at any price — he will one day be 
the pride of our cabinet of natural history, and the ornament of our 
town." 

The Berliner appeared to listen somewhat distractedly — more at- 
tractive objects had drawn his attention, and he finally interrupted 
me with the words, " Excuse me, if you please, if I interrupt you, 
but will you be so kind as to tell me what sort of a dog that is which 
runs there ?" 

" That is another puppy." 

" Ah, you don't understand me. I refer to the great white shaggy 
dog without a tail." 

"My dear sir that is the dog of the modern Alcibiades." 



— 247 — 

" But," exclaimed the Berliner, '' where is then the modern Alci- 
biades himself?" 

"To tell the plain truth," I replied, "the office is not as yet occu- 
pied, and we have so far, only his dog." 



CHAPTER IY. 



The place where this conversation occurred, is called Bogen 
hausen, or Neuburghausen, or Yilla Hompesch, or the Montgelas 
Garden, or the Little Castle — but there is no need of mentioning its 
name, for if any one undertakes to ride out of Munich, the coachman 
understands us by a certain thirsty twinkle of the eyes — by well- 
known noddings of the head, anticipatory of enjoyment, and by 
grimaces of the same family. The Arab has a thousand expressions 
for a sword, the Frenchman for love, the Englishman for hanging, 
the German for drinking, and the modern Athenian for the place 
where he drinks, The beer is in the place aforesaid, really very good, 
even in the Prytanceum, vulgo " Bokskeller," it is no better, and it 
tastes admirably, especially on that stair terrace, where we have the 
Tyrolese Alps before our eyes. I often sat there during the past 
winter, gazing on the snow-covered mountains, which gleaming in the 
sun rays seemed like molten silver. 

In those days it was also winter in my soul. Thoughts and feelings 
seemed as it were, snowed in, and my soul was dried up and dead. To 
this was added political vexations, grief for a dearly loved lost child, 
and an old source of grief with a bad cold. Moreover, I drank much 
beer, having been assured that it made light blood. But the best 
Attic Breihahn* profited not by me, who had previously in England 
accustomed myself to porter. 

At last came the day when all changed. The sun burst forth from 
the heaven and suckled the earth, that ancient child, with her gleam- 
ing milk, the hills trembled with joy, and their snow-tears ran down 
mighty in their power. The ice on the lakes cracked and broke, the 



* Breihahn, literally " brew-cock." A few centuries ago the term Breihahn was applied 
only to a sort of Hanoverian beer. But it is now of more general application. In the 
treatise Be Jure Potandi, which forms a part of the Facetice Facetiarum, edition 1645, p 
61, I find the following list of the then fashionable bee|e. " Meo palatui magis ad blav 
ditur cerevisia Rostochiensis, Bantziger Dubbelt Bier, Preussingk, Braunschweigische 
Mumme, Knisenack, Hanvoversch Breyhan, Evglischs Bier, Zerbsttr, Torger, (guam Kuc* 
buck) Bueffel, Rastrum, Klatsche. 



— 248 — 

earth opened her blue eyes, the dear flowers and the ringing woods 
ran forth from her bosom, the green palaces of the nightingales and 
all nature laughed, and this laughter was spring. In my soul there 
began also a new spring, new flowers sprouted from my heart, feelings 
of freedom like roses shot up, and therewith secret longings, like 
young violets amid which were many useless nettles, Hope again 
drew her cheerful green covering over the graves of my desires, even 
the melodies of poetry rime again to me like birds of passage who 
have gone with winter to the warm south, and who now again seek 
their abandoned nests in the north, and the neglected northern heart 
rang and bloomed as of old — only I knew not how all this happened. 
Was it a brown or a blonde sun which awoke spring once more in 
my heart, and kissed awake all the sleeping flowers in my bosom, 
and laughed up the nightingales ? Was it elective nature herself 
which sought its echo in my breast, and gladly mirrored herself therein 
with her fresh spring gleam ? I know not, but I believe that the 
terrace at Bogenhausen, in view of the Tyrolese Alps, gave my heart 
a new enchantment. When I sat there deeply buried in thought, it 
often seemed to me as though I saw the countenance of a wondrous 
lovely youth, peeping over the mountains, and I longed for wings that 
I might hasten to his home-land Italy. Often did I feel myself sur- 
rounded by the perfumes of orange and lemon groves, which blew 
from the hills, enticing and calling me to Italy. Once even in the 
golden twilight I saw the young Spring God large as life standing on 
the summit of an Alp. Flowers and laurels surrounded his joyful 
head, and with smiling eyes and merry mouth, he cried : " I love thee 
— seek me in Italy I" 



CHAPTER Y. 



My glance may have quivered somewhat longingly, as I, in doubt 
over the unattainable dialogue of the Philistines, gazed at the lovely 
Tyrolese Alps, and sighed deeply. My Berlin Philister, however, 
saw in this glance and sigh, fresh subject for conversation, and sighed 
with me. " Ah, yes — I too would now be so glad to be in Constan- 
tinople ! Have you visited St. Petersburg ?" I admitted that I had 
not, and begged him to narrate something of it. But it was not he 
himself, but his brother-in-law, the Court Chamber Counsellor, who 
had been there, and it was an altogether particular sort of a town. 



— 249 - 

" Have you seen Copenhagen though?" Having replied in the nega- 
tive, I also requested some sketch of the latter place, when he laughed 
very- significantly, nodding his head here and there right pleasantly, 
assuring me upon his honor that I could form no sort of idea of the 
town if I had not been there. " That," I replied, " cannot just at 
present be the case. I am now thinking over another journey, which 
first came into my head this spring — I intend travelling in Italy." 

As the man heard these words, he suddenly leaped from his chair, 
pirouetted three times on one foot, and trilled : Tirili ! Tirili ! 
Tirilil 

That was the last spur. " To-morrow I start !" was my determi- 
nation on the spot. I will delay no longer. I will at once see that 
land, the mere mention of which so inspires the dryest and most 
common-place of mortals, that he at once, in ecstacy, trills like a 
quail. While I at home packed my trunk, that Tirili rang con- 
stantly in my ears, and my brother, Maximilian Heine, who the next 
day accompanied me as far as the Tyrol, could not comprehend why 
it was that, on the whole way, I did not speak a single sensible word, 
and constantly tiril-eed. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Tirili ! Tirili ! I live ! I feel the sweet pain of existence ! 1 
feel all the joys and sorrows of life ! I suffer for the salvation of the 
whole human race ! I atone for their sins — but I also enjoy them. 

And I also feel, not only with humanity, but with the world of 
plants. Their thousand green tongues narrate the sweetest, gentlest 
tales to me — they know that I have not selfish human pride, and that 
I converse as willingly with the lowliest meadow floweret as with the 
loftiest pines. Ah ! I know how it is with those pines ! They shoot 
heaven-high from the depth of the valley, and well nigh range over 
the boldest mountain rocks. But how long does their glory last ? At 
the utmost a few miserable centuries, when, weary with age, they 
break down and rot on the ground. Then, by night, the treacherous 
cat comes stealing quickly, and mocks them : " Ha, ye strong pines — 
ye who hoped to vie with the rocks — now ye lie broken, adown there, 
and the rocks stand unshaken as before." 

The eagle, who sits on his favorite lonely rocks, and listens to this 
scorn, must feel pity in his soul — for he then thinks on his own des- 



— 250 — 

tiny. For even he knows not how deeply he may some day be 
bedded. But the stars twinkle so soothingly, the forest streams rip- 
ple so consolingly, and his own soul leaps so proudly over all petty 
thoughts, that he soon forgets them. When the sun comes forth, he 
feels as before as he flies upwards to it, and when near it, sings his 
joy and his pain. His fellow creatures, especially men, believe that 
the eagle cannot sing, and know not that he only lifts his voice in 
music when far from the realm which they inhabit, and that in his 
pride he will only be heard by the sun. And he is right, for it might 
occur to some of the feathered mob down below there to criticise his 
song. I myself have heard such critics ;— the hen stands on one leg 
and clucks that the singer has no "soul ;" the turkey gobbles that he 
needs " earnest feeling ;" the dove coos that he cannot feel true love ; 
the goose quacks that he is "ignorant of science ;" the capon chuckles 
out that he is "immoral;" the martin twitters that he is irreligious; 
the sparrow pipes that "he is not sufficiently prolific ;" Tioopoos* 
popinjays and screech-owls, all cackling, and gabbling, and yelling; — 
only the nightingale joins not in the noise of these critics. Caring 
naught for her cotemporaries, the red rose is her only thought, and 
her only song ; deep lost in desire, she flutters around that red rose, 
and wild with inspiration she leaps among the loved thorns, and sings 
and bleeds. 



CHAPTER VII. 



There is an eagle in the German Fatherland, whose sun-song 
rings so powerfully that it may also be heard here below, and even 
the nightingales cease to sing, in spite of all their melodious pains. 
Thou art that eagle, Karl Immebmann, and I often think of thee in 
that land of which thou hast sung so sweetly. . How could I travel 
through the Tyrol without thinking of the "Tragedy?" 

Now, of course, I have seen things in another light ; but I won- 
der that the poet, who created from the fulness of his soul, should 
have approached so near the reality, which he had never seen. I was 
most pleased with the reflection that " The Tragedy in Tyrol" was 
prohibited. I thought of the words which my friend Moser wrote 



* Wiedchoepchen. Perhaps this vrovd might he al?o rendered " pooh-pooh." — [Note b$ 
Translator.] 



— 251 — 

me, when he said that the second volume of the " Pictures of Travel" 
were forbidden : "It was needless for government to put the book 
under the ban — people would have read it without that." 

In Innsbruck, in the Golden Eagle, where Andreas Hofer had 
lodged, and where every corner is still filled with his portraits and 
mementoes, I asked the landlord, Herr Niederkirchner, if he knew 
anything of the " Sandwirth." Then the old gentleman boiled over 
with eloquence, and confidentially informed me, with divers winks, 
that the whole story had at last come out in a book, which was, how- 
ever, altogether prohibited ; and having led me *to a dark chamber, 
where he carefully preserved his relics of the Tyrolese war, unrolled 
from a dirty blue paper a well-thumbed, green looking book, which I 
found, to my astonishment, was Immermann's "Tragedy in the Tyrol." 
I told the landlord, not without pride, that the man who had written 
it was my friend. Herr Niederkirchner would fain know as much 
as possible of him. I said that he was one who had seen service, a 
man of good stature, very honorable, and very gifted in writing, so 
that he seldom found his like. But Herr Niederkirchner would not 
believe that he was a Prussian, and exclaimed, with a compassionate 
smile, " Oh, get out !"* He insisted on believing that Immermann 
was a Tyroler, and that he had fought in the war — " How else 
could he have known all about it?" 

Strange fancies these of the multitude ! They seek* their histo- 
ries from the poet and not from the historian. They ask not for 
bare facts, but those facts again dissolved in the original poetry from 
which they sprung. This the poets well know, and it is not without 
a certain mischievous pleasure that they mould at will popular memo- 
ries, perhaps in mockery of pride-baked historians and parchment- 
minded keepers of state-documents. Greatly was I delighted when, 
amid the stalls of the last fair, I saw the history of Belisarius hang- 
ing up in the form of coarsely colored engravings, and those not 
according to PROCOPius,but exactly as described in Schenk's tragedy. 
" So history is falsified !" exclaimed a pedantic friend who accom- 
panied me, " it knows nothing of a slandered wife, an imprisoned son, 
a loving daughter, and the like modern fictions of the heart !" But 
is this really an error ? Must suit be at once brought against the 
forger ? No, I deny the accusation ! For they give the sense in all 



* Warum nicht gar? One should have lived in Bavaria, or the Tyrol, to appreciate the 
full force of this non-assenting sentence. Literally it means, " Why not entirely bo ?" 



— 252 — 

its truthfulness, though it be clothed in inverted form and circum- 
stance. There are races whose whole history has only been handed 
down in this poetic wise, such as the Hindoos. For such lays as the 
Maha-Barata give the sense and spirit of Indian history far more 
accurately than any writer of compendiums, could with ajl his chro- 
nology. From the same point of view, I would assert that Walter 
Scott's romances give, occasionally, the spirit of English history far 
more truthfully than Hume has done ; at least, Sartorius was very 
much in the right when he, in his supplement to Spittler, places 
those romances anfong English historical works. 

It is with poets as with dreamers, who in sleep disguise those 
internal feelings, which their souls experience from real external 
causes, since they at once assign on the spot by dreaming, to the 
the latter, altogether different causes from the real, which, however, 
in one respect, amount to the same thing, in that they bring forth the 
same feelings. So, in Immermann's "Tragedy," many dramatic attri- 
butes are rather arbitrarily added, but the hero himself, the central 
point of feeling, is accurately dreamed, and if this dream-form seems 
visionary, it is still truthful. Baron Hormayr, who is the most 
competent judge of this matter, turned my attention to this circum- 
stance, when I on a recent occasion had the pleasure of conversing 
with him. Immermann has very accurately set forth the mystical 
individual life, the superstitious piety, and the epic character of the 
man. He symbolised to the life that true-hearted dove, who with a 
glittering sword in the bill swept so heroically like martial love true 
over the hills of Tyrol, until the bullets of Mantua penetrated her 
heart. 

But what is most honorable to the poet, is the equally accurate 
description of the opponent whom he has not described as a raging 
Gessler, merely to exalt his adversary. If the one be a dove with the 
sword, the latter is not less an eagle with the olive branch. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



In the public room of the inn of Herr Niederkirchner, at Inns- 
bruck, hang side by side in peaceful unison, the portraits of Andreas 
Hofer, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louis of Bavaria. 

Innsbruck itself is an uninhabitable, stupid town. It may, perhaps, 
appear more intelligent and agreeable in winter, when the higt 



— 253 — 

mountains with which it is surrounded are covered with snow, and 
the avalanches thunder and ice cracks and glitters all around. 

I found the summits of those mountains covered with clonds as wit h 
grey turbans. There we see the Martinswand, the theatre of the 
pleasantest imperial legends, since it is especially in the Tyrol that 
the memories of the knightly Max, flourish and ring. 

In the Hofkirclie — royal church — stand the celebrated full-length 
statues of the princes and the princesses of the House of Austria, 
with their ancestors ; among whom are many, who doubtless wonder 
even at the present day how they came by the honor. They stand 
in mighty life-size, cast in iron, around the tomb of Maximilian. But 
as the church is small and roof low, they put one in mind of 
figures of black wax in a booth in a fair. On the pedestal of most, 
we can also read the names of those whom they represent. As I 
looked at these statues, an English party entered ; the leader being a 
lean man with a gaping countenance, his thumbs hooked into the 
armholes of his white vest, and holding between his teeth a leathern 
Guide des Voyageurs. Behind him came his tall companion for life, 
a lady no longer young, and who had apparently both lived and loved 
herself out, but still quite good-looking. Behind them came a red 
porter-face in powder white trimmings, treading stiffly along in a ditto 
coat — his wooden hands fully freighted with my lady's gloves, Alpine 
flowers, and a poodle. 

The trinity walked straight as a plumb line to the upper end of the 
church, where the son of Albion explained the statue to his wife, and 
that from his guide book, in which he read at full length the descrip- 
tions. The first statue is that of King Clodevig of France, the next 
that of King Arthur of England, the third Rudolph of Hapsburg, and 
so forth. But as the poor Englishman began by mistake the row 
from above instead of from below, as his guide-book directed, he fell 
into the most exquisite blunders, which were still more comic when 
he came to some lady's statue, which he mistook for that of a man, 
and vice versa, so that he could not comprehend why Rudolph of 



* In the original, Heine uses the word KJeeblatt, or clover leaf, -which (like trifolium in 
mediaeval Latin) signifies in German, a company of three. It was doubtless an association 
with the Trinity which caused the clover leaf company of three to be regarded as pecu- 
liarly correct. Compagnie de trois, Compagnie de Roys, says an old French proverb. In 
the drinking language of the Knights of the Middle Ages, a clover leaf meant the drain- 
ing of three large goblets of wine, each one at a draught. In modern German student 
phrase it is applied to a quantum of drinking uteEsils for three persons, or a Saufg& 
sdlsschaft or club of that member.— [JVoteby Translator.] 

22 



— 254 — 

Hapsbueg wore petticoats, or why Queen Maria had donned 
steel breeches, and had a much too long beard. I, who was willing 
to help him out with my learning, casually remarked that that was 
probably the fashion in those days, and it might have also been a 
peculiar freak of those dignitaries, so that people dared not for their 
lives cast them otherwise. So if it came into the head of the then 
emperor to have himself " run" in petticoats or swaddling bands, who 
dared object to his fancy ? 

The poodle barked critically, the lackey stared, the gentleman 
rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and my lady said : "A fine 
exhibition, very fine, indeed /" 



CHAPTER IX. 



Brixen was the second great town of the Tyrol which I entered. 
It lies in a valley, and as I arrived there it was covered over with 
mist and the shadows of evening. Twilight, silence, melancholy 
ding-donging of bells, sheep trotting to their sheds, human beings to 
churches, everywhere an oppressive smell of ugly saint's images and 
dry hay. 

"The Jesuits are in Brixen." So I had read not long before in 
Hesperus. I looked everywhere around the streets to find them, but 
saw nobody who looked like a Jesuit, unless it were a fat man in a 
clerical three-cornered hat and a priestly-cut black coat, rather old 
and worn out, which contrasted strangely with his shining new black 
breeches. 

" That can be no Jesuit," said I, finally to myself — for I have 
always pictured Jesuits to myself as rather lean. But are there 
really any Jesuits ? It often seems to me that their existence is only a 
chimera, as though it were only a fear of them which still goes ghost- 
ing* about in our heads, long after the peril is over ; and all the zeal 
still manifested against Jesuits puts me in mind of people, who long 
after it has ceased to rain, go walking about with opened and lifted 
umbrellas. Yes — I often think that the Devil, Nobility, and Jesuits 
exist only as long as we believe in them. We know it in truth of 
the Devil, for only the believers have ever seen him. Also as regards 



* Spulcen — to appear as a ghost — to ghost it. In plain Pennsylvania English, we eaj% 
spook 



— 255 — 

the nobility, we shall soon experience that the bonne soci^has ceased 
to exist so soon as the good citizen takes it into his head not to regard 
them any longer as the bonne society. But the Jesuits ! At least they 
no longer wear the old breeches. The old Jesuits lie in their graves 
with their old breeches, their longings, their world plans, their ranks, 
distinctions, reservations, and poisons, and what we now see slipping 
through the world in new shining breeches, is not as much their spirit 
as their spectre, an awkward, silly, weak-minded spectre, which daily 
seems striving by word and deed to convince us how little there is 
terrible in it ; and indeed it reminds us of a similar ghost in the Thu- 
ringian forest, which freed those who were terrified at it from all 
terror, by taking its skull from its shoulders and showing all the 
world that it was hollow and empty. 

I cannot refrain from mentioning by the way, that I accidentally 
learned more of the man in the shining new breeches, and ascertained 
that he was no Jesuit, but only one of the common sort of the Lord's 
cattle. For I met him in the public room of my inn, where he was 
taking supper in company with a long, lean man, entitled "Ex- 
cellency," who resembled the old bachelorly country squire, de- 
scribed by Shakspeare, as closely as if Nature had plagiarised him 
from the great author. Both enjoyed their meals, while they perse- 
cuted the girl who waited on them with caresses, which seemed to 
disgust to the last degree the charming, beautiful creature, until she 
finally broke from them by main force, when the one clapped her 
smartly behind, while the other sought to embrace her in front. Then 
they began with the lewdest jests, which the maiden, as they well 
knew, could not help hearing, as she was obliged to remain in the 
room and wait on the company, and spread my table. But when, 
finally, their language became literally intolerable, she at once left 
every thing standing and disappeared through the door. When she 
returned, which was not for some minutes, it was with a little child 
on her arm, which she continued to hold during the time that she 
remained in the room, though it greatly impeded her movements. 
But the two companions — the clerical as well as the noble gentleman — 
did not venture any more to insult the girl, who now without mani- 
festing any ill-feeliug, but still with singular seriousness waited on them 
until the end. Their language took another direction — both con- 
versed on the usual subjects of conspiracies against the throne and 
the altar, they agreed on the necessity of strong measures, and often 
clasped in turn the hand of holy alliance. 



— 256 — 



CHAPTER X. 

The works of Joseph vox Hormayr are indispensable to him who 
would study the history of the Tyrol, while for its more recent 
records, he himself is the best, and in many respects the only source. 
He is for the Tyrol what John yon Muller is for Switzerland ; a 
comparison which frequently suggests itself. They are like next 
neighbors — both were inspired in early youth for the Alps of their 
birth — both are industrious, searching minds, of historical feeling and 
training. John yox Muller, of an epic turn, cradling his soul in 
histories of the past. Joseph yon Hormayr, quick and earnest in 
his feelings, is, on the other hand, impelled more energetically into 
the future, unselfishly venturing his life for that which was dear to 
him. 

Bartholdy's " War of the Tyrolese Peasantry in the year 1 80 9 " 
is an intelligent and well written work, and if it has its defects, it is 
because its writer, as is natural for a noble soul, was prejudiced in 
favor of the weaker party, and because he still had gunpowder smoke 
in his eyes when he wrote. 

Many remarkable events of that time have never been written down, 
and exist as yet only in the memory of the people, who do not wil- 
lingly speak of them, as they awaken hopes which were deceived. 
The poor Tyrolese were obliged to go through many harsh expe- 
riences, and if you ask them now if they obtained, as a reward for 
their fidelity, all which was promised them, they good-naturedly shrug 
their shoulders, and answer, naively, that perhaps things were not 
meant quite so much in earnest as they thought — that the Emperor 
has a great deal to think of — and that much passes unnoticed through 
his head. 

Console yourselves, poor rogues! Ye are not the only ones to 
whom something was promised. It often happens, on board great 
slave-ships, in terrible storms, and amid dangers, that they break the 
chains of the blacks, and promise them their freedom if they save the 
vessel. The silly negroes rejoice at the light of day, they hurry to 
the pumps, they stamp in their strength, aid where they can, leap, 
haul, coil the cables, and work until the peril is past. Then, of 
course, as any one might suppose, they are put again into the hold, 
chained nicely down, and left in their darkness to make demagogical 
reflections on the promises of slave-dealers, whose only care is, the 
danger being over, to swindle some more souls into their power. 

21* 



— 257 

navis referent in mare te novi. 

FlucUis t 

When ray old teacher used to explain this ode of Horace, in which 
the senate is compared to a ship, he was in the habit of making all 
sorts of political reflections, which he abruptly suspended after the 
battle of Leipzig had been fought, and the whole class was suddenly 
broken up. 

My old teacher knew it all beforehand. When we first heard of 
the battle, he shook his grey head. Now I know what that shaking 
meant. Soon we had more accurate intelligence, and in secret peo- 
ple showed one another pictures, in which we saw, in varied and 
instructive form, how the higher leaders of the armies knelt on the 
field of battle and thanked God. . 

" Yes — they might thank God," said my teacher, and smiled as he 
was accustomed to do when he commented on Sallust. " The Em- 
peror Napoleon has rapped them so often on the head, that they 
must eventually learn something." 

Then came the Allies, and the miserable poems of the Liberation, 
Hermann and Thusnelda, Hurrah and the Female Union, and the 
Fatherland's Acorns, and the everlasting boasting of the battle of 
Leipzig, and once again the battle of Leipzig, and no end thereof. 

" It is with these people," remarked my teacher, " as with the 
Thebans, when they finally, at Leuctra, overcame the mighty Spar- 
tans, and continually boasted of it, so that Antisthenes compared 
them to boys who can, having once beaten their master, never cease 
their rejoicings. My dear youths — it would have been better for us 
had we ourselves got the whipping." 

Soon after the old man died. Prussian grass now grows over his 
grave, and there also are pastured the horses of our renewed nobility. 



CHAPTER XI. 



The Tyrolese are handsome, cheerful, honorable, brave, and of 
inscrutable narrowness of mind. They are a healthy race, perhaps 
because they are too stupid to be sick. I would also call them a 
noble race, because they evince much discrimination in their food, 
and keep their houses very clean, only they entirely lack the feeling 
of personal dignity. The Tyrolese has a sort of laughing, humorous 
servilism, which wears an almost ironical air, but which is intended 
to be Ihoroughly honorable. The girls in the Tyrol greet you so 

22* 



— 258 — 

amiably, and the men press your hand so severely, and behave them- 
selves with such ornamental earnestness, that you can almost believe 
that they treat you like a near relation, or at least like one of them- 
selves — but you are wide of the mark ; they never forget that they 
are but common people, and that you are a gentleman, who likes to 
see common people speak to him without shyness. And in this their 
instincts are true to nature, for the stiffest aristocrats are pleased 
when they can find an opportunity of laying aside their dignity, for 
it is by the descent that they realize how high they are placed. At 
home the Tyrolese exercise this servility gratis — when abroad, they 
use it to enrich themselves. They set a price on their personality 
and nationality. These dealers in variegated table-covers — these 
jolly Tyrolese fellows (Tyroler Bua) — whom we see travelling about 
in their national costume, willingly let you crack a joke on them — 
but you must buy something of them. The Eainer family, who 
were in England, understood the business, and had good advisers 
into the bargain, who well understood the spirit of the English 
nobility. This was the cause of their gracious reception in that 
foyer of European aristocracy, the West End of London. When I 
stood, last summer, in the brilliant concert-halls of the London 
fashionable world, and saw those Tyrolese singers, in their national cos- 
tume, mount the stage, and listened to those lays which are jodeled 
with such good and naive expression, and which ring so pleasantly in 
our northern German heart — it all ate with bitter discontent into my 
soul, the gratified laughter of aristocratic lips stung me like ser- 
pents — it seemed as though I saw the purity of the German tongue 
profaned, and the sweetest mysteries of German spirit life degraded 
before a foreign mob. I could not applaud this shameless trafficking 
in the most reserved feelings, and a Swiss, who, inspired with the 
same feelings, left with me the hall, very truly remarked : " We Swiss 
trade for money the best things we have — our cheese and our best 
blood — but we cannot hear the Alpine horn blown in foreign lands — 
much less play on it ourselves, for money." 



CHAPTER XII. 



Tyrol is very beautiful, but the most beautiful landscapes cannot 
enchant us when darkened by gloomy weather, and similar causes 
of mental excitement. This is always the case with me, and when 



— 259 — 

there is bad weather without, I invariably find bad weather within. 
I only occasionally dared put my head out of the wagon, and then I 
beheld mountains high as the Heaven, which looked earnestly down 
on me, and nodded to me with their monstrous heads and cloud-beards, 
a pleasant journey. Here and there I beheld a far-blue hill, which 
seemed travelling along on foot, and to peep inquisitively over the head 
of other hills, as if to look at me. Every where crashed the forest 
streams, which leaped as if mad from the mountains, and met in the 
whirlpools of the valleys. The inhabitants lay snug in their neat, 
clean little cottages, which for the greater part lie scattered on the 
steepest cliffs, and on the very edge of precipices, and these neat, 
clean little cottages are generally ornamented with long balcony- 
like galleries, which in turn are bedecked with linen, images of saints, 
flower-pots, and pretty girls. These cottages are also prettily painted, 
mostly with white and green, as if they too had a fancy to wear the 
national costume of green suspenders over a white shirt. When I 
beheld these houses far away amid the lonely rain, my heart would 
fain climb up to them, and to their inhabitants, who beyond doubt 
sat dry and jolly enough, within. " In these," thought I, " they must 
live pleasantly and domestically enough, and beyond doubt the old 
grandmother tells the most confidential tales." While the coach 
went on without mercy, I often looked back to see the little blue 
pillars of smoke climbing from the chimnies, and then it rained harder 
than ever, both without and within, until the tear-drops ran out of 
my eyes. 

But my heart often rose and climbed in spite of the weather to the 
men who dwell high up on the mountains, and perhaps hardly came 
down once in a life time, and learn but little of what is. passing here 
below. Yet they are not on that account less good or happy. They 
know nothing of politics, save that they have an emperor who wears a 
white coat and red breeches, as they have learned from an old uncle 
who had learned it himself in Innsbruck, from Black Joe, who had 
been in Vienna. And when the patriots climbed up to them, and told 
them with oratory that they now had a prince who wore a blue coat 
and white breeches, they grasped their rifles, and kissed wife and 
child, and went down the mountain and offered up their lives in 
defence of the white coat and the dear old red breeches. 

After all it amounts to about one and the same thing, for what we die, 
if we only die for something we love, and a warm true-hearted 
death like this is better than a cold false life. The very songs of such 
a death warm our hearts, with their sweet rhymes and bright words, 



— 260 — 

when damp clouds and pressing sorrows -would fain render it dark 
and gloomy. 

Many such songs rang in my heart as I crossed the Tyrolese moun- 
tains. The confiding fir-trees rustled many forgotten love-words, back 
into my memory. Particularly when the great blue mountain lakes 
gazed on me, with such endless longing did I recall "the two king's- 
children" who loved so dearly and died together. It is an old, old 
story, which nobody believes now, and of which I myself only remem- 
ber a few rhymes. 

" They both were monarch's children, 
And loved right well, I ween, 
But never could come together, 
For water was rolling between. 

" Dear heart canst thou swim hither, 
Dear heart so swim to me, 
I'll light thee from my window, 
It shall thy beacon be !" 

These words began to ring in my heart, as I, on an opposite lake, 
Deheld on one side a little boy, and on the other a little girl, both 
prettily dressed in their variegated national costume with little 
ribboned green taper hats on their heads, wafting greetings to one 
another — 

" But never could come together, 
For water was rolling between." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



In Southern Tyrol, the weather cleared up, the sun of Italy made 
itself felt, even at a distance, the hills became warmer and brighter, 
I saw vines rising on them, and-I could lean oftener out of the car- 
riage. windows. But when I thus leaned out there leaned with me 
my heart, and with my heart all its love, sorrow, and folly. And it 
often happened that the poor heart was torn by the thorns when it 
leaned toward the rose-bushes by the way-side — and the roses of 
Tyrol are not ugly. When I rode through Steinack and saw the 
market-place where Immermann represents the " Sand-landlord," 



— 261 — 

Hofer, as coming boldly forthwith his companions, I found that the 
spot was too small for an insurgent meeting, but large enough to fall 
in love in. There are only a few white houses there, and from a small 
window there peeped out a little Sand- Landlady, aiming and shooting 
from great eyes — if the coach had not travelled by so quickly, and 
had she had time to load again, I should have been shot dead for 
certain. I called out. " Go ahead, coachman — there is no joking 
with such a 'fair Elsie' — such eyes would set fire to the house over 
one's head I" As an experienced traveller, I must confess that the 
landlady iu Sterzing is really an old woman — but she has two young 
daughters whose eyes warm the heart of the traveller as he steps out 
of the coach, in a most beneficial manner. But I cannot forget thee, 
thou fairest of all, thou lovely spinner on the marches of Italy ! Oh, 
hadst thou given to me as Ariadne gave to Theseus the thread of 
thy spinning to lead me through the labyrinth of life, I had long 
since conquered the Minotaur, and I would love thee, and kiss thee, 
and never leave thee ! 

" It is a good sign when women laugh," says a Chinese author, and 
a German writer was of precisely the same opinion, when in Southern 
Tyrol, just where Italy begins, he passed a mountain, at whose base 
on a low foundation, he passed one of those neat little houses which 
look so lovely with their snug gallery and naive paintings. On one 
side stood a great wooden crucifix, supporting a young vine, so that 
it looked horribly cheerful, like life twining around death, to see the 
soft green branches hanging around the bloody body and crucified 
limbs. On the other side of the cottage was a round dove-cote whose 
feathered population flew here, and there, while one very gentle white 
dove sat on the pretty gabled roof, which, like a pious niche over a 
saint, rose over the head of the lovely spinner. She, the fair one, sat 
on the little gallery and span — not according to the German method, 
but in that world-old manner, by which a distaff is held under the arm, 
and the thread descends with the loose spindle. So of old span 
kings' daughters in Greece — so at the present day spin the fates and 
all Italian women. She span and laughed, the dove sat still over 
her head, while far over house and all rose the mountains, their snowy 
summits glittering in the sun, so that they seemed like giants with 
polished helmets on their heads. 

She span and smiled ; and I believe that she spun my heart fast, 
as the coach went along somewhat more slowly, on account of the 
broad stream of the Eisach. The dear features remained all day in 
my memory — every where I beheld nothing save a lovely face, which 



— 262 — 

seemed as though a Grecian sculptor had carved it from the perfume 
of a white rose, in such breath-like delicacy, such beatific nobility, 
that I could believe he had dreamed it of a spring night. But those 
eyes ! — ah, no Greek could ever have imagined or comprehended them. 
But I saw and comprehended those romantic stars which so magic- 
ally illumined the glory of the antique. All day long I saw them, 
and all night long I dreamed of them. There she sat again smiliDg. 
the doves fluttering around like angels of love, even the white dove 
over her head, mystically flapped its wings ; behind her rose mightier 
than ever the helmet warriors, before her roared along more stormily 
the brook, the vine-branches climbed in wilder haste the crucified 
wooden image, which quivered with pain, and the suffering eyes opened, 
and the wounds bled, and — she, however, sat still and span, and on 
the thread of her distaff, like a dancing spindle, hung my own heart. 



CHAPTEK XIT 



While the sun gleamed ever lordlier and lovelier from heaven, cloth- 
ing mountain and castle with golden veils, it still became hotter and 
livelier in my heart, once more my whole bosom was full of flowers, 
which shot forth sprouting mightily over my head, and through the 
flowers from my heart smiled heavenly fair the face of the lovely spinner. 
Imprisoned in such dreams — myself a dream — I came to Italy, and 
as I during the journey had entirely forgotten that I was travelling, 
I was well nigh terrified when all at once all the great Italian eyes 
opened on me, and the variegated, tangled life of Italy came leaping 
towards me ; real, warm, and humming ! 

All of this happened to me, however, in the city of Trent, one fine 
Sunday afternoon, at the hour when the heat goes to sleep, and the 
Italians wake up and go walking about the streets. This town lies, 
old and broken amid, a broad circle of blooming green hills, which 
like eternal young gods look down on the ancient broken works of 
man. Broken and brittle too, near the latter lies the high castle 
which once ruled the town, a daring building of a daring time, with 
spires, pinnacles, battlements, and a broad round tower inhabited by 
owls and Austrian invalids. Even the town itself is wildy built, and 
at the first glance it produces a wonderful effect, with its awfully old 
houses, with their faded frescoes and cracked saints' images — with 
their towers, porticoes, barred windows, and those projecting roofs 



% — 263 — 

which rest like balconies on old grey pillars which seem themselves 
to require support. Such a sight would have been all too sorrowful 
had not nature refreshed the dead stones with new life, had not sweet 
vine leaves lovingly and tenderly embraced the broken old pillars, as 
youth embraces age, and still sweeter maidens' faces had not peeped 
from the melancholy old arched windows, and smiled on the G-erman 
stranger, who like a sleep-wandering dreamer walked strangely here 
and there among the blooming ruins. 

I was really as in a dream, and one of those dreams, too, wherein 
we strive to recal something we have dreamed long ago. I looked 
in turn at the houses and at the people, and I was inclined to think 
that I had been acquainted with those houses in their better days, 
when they wore bran new paintings, when the gilt ornaments on their 
window friezes were not as yet so black, and when the marble Madonna 
bearing the child on her arm, still had her beautiful head, which those 
iconoclasts, age, and wind had broken away, in such a vulgar, Jaco- 
binical manner. The faces of the elderly dames seemed familiar to me as 
though they had been cut from the old Italian pictures I had seen in 
the Dlisseldorf Gallery when a boy. In like manner the old men 
seemed well known and long forgotten, and gazed at me as though 
from the depth of a thousand years. Even the brisk young girls had 
something of that which had been dead a thousand years in their faces, 
and yet of revived bloom, so that almost a terror stole over me, a 
sweet, gentle terror such as I once felt when in the lonely midnight 
my lips pressed those of Maria, a wondrous lovely lady, whose only 
fault was that she was dead. But then again I laughed as the idea 
came into my head that the whole town was nothing but a pretty 
novel, which I had once read — yes — which I myself had written, and 
that I now was enchanted by my own work, and was terrified by 
sprites of my own raising. "Perhaps, too," thought I, "all is but a 
dream," and I would gladly have given a dollar for a few boxes on the 
ear, just to learn whether I was asleep or awake. 

They were at hand, and I might have got them at a cheaper rate, 
as I stumbled over an old fruit-woman. She contented herself with 
throwing a real box (of figs) at my ears, and I thus came suddenly to 
the conviction that I w T as, in the most actual of realities, in the middle 
of the market-place of Trent, near the great fountain, from whose 
copper Tritons and dolphins the silver clear waters welled out pleas- 
ant and reviving. To the left stood an old palace, whose walls were 
painted with many coloured allegorical figures, and on whose terrace 
several gray Austrian soldiers were being drilled into heroism; to 



— 264 — 

the right stood a gothie Lombard, capricious looking- house, from 
which a sweet, fluttering maiden's voice came trilling so dashingly 
and merrily, that the widowed old walls trembled either with pleasure 
or from decay, while above there looked from the arch window a black 
labyrinthine-curled, comedian-looking wig, under which projected a 
sharply cut thin face, which was rouged, but only on the left cheek, 
and which consequently looked like a pancake baked only on one side 
But before me, in the midst, stood the ancient cathedral, not great, 
not gloomy, but like a cheerful old man, confiding and inviting by 
his age. 



CHAPTBE TV. 



As I drew aside the green-silk curtain which covered the entrance 
to the cathedral, and entered the house of the Lord, I was agreeably 
refreshed in body and soul, by the pleasant perfume which greeted 
me, by the tranquillizing magic light which flowed through the many 
colored windows on the praying assembly within. They were mostly 
women, kneeling in long rows on the low prayer-benches, they prayed 
only with a light movement of their lips, fanning themselves constantly 
meanwhile with great green fans, so that nothing could be heard save 
an incessant, mysterious whispering, and nothing seen but moving 
fans and waving veils. The creaking tread of my boots disturbed 
many a fine prayer, and great catholic eyes stared at me half inquisi- 
tively, half willingly, as if they would fain advise me to kneel and 
enjoy with them a siesta of the soul. 

Truly such a cathedral, with its subdued light, and its coolness is 
an agreeable resting-place, when we have out of doors flaring sun- 
shine and oppressive heat, we have no idea of this in our Protestant 
North Germany, where the churches are not built so comfortably, 
and where the light comes shooting so saucily through the uncolored, 
common-sense window panes, which do not protect even the cold, 
harsh sermon from the heat. People may say what they will, Catholi- 
cism is a good religion — for summer. There is such good lying 
round on the benches of this old cathedral, we enjoy on them such 
a cool piety, such a holy dolce far niente, one can pray, and dream, 
and sin together in thought, the Madonnas wink so forgivingly 
from their niches, woman-like, they forgive us even when we have 
entangled their lovely features in the sinful current of our wantoc 



— 265 — 

imaginations, while, as a superfluity there stands in every corner a 
brown, pierced chair of conscience, where we can ease ourselves of 
our sins. 

In such a chair sat a young monk of earnest mien; but the face of 
the lady who confessed to him her sins was concealed from me, partly 
by her white veil and partly by the side of the confessional, yet there 
came to view a hand, which at once held me fast. I could not help 
looking at it ; its blue veins, and the aristocratic gleam of its white 
fingers were so strangely familiar to me, and all the power of dreams 
in my soul was stirred into life to shape a face to match this hand. It 
was a lovely hand, not that of a young girl who, half lamb and half 
rose, has only thoughtless, vegetable-animal hands — this hand on the 
contrary had something spiritual in it, something exciting past associa- 
tions like the hands of handsome human beings who are highly refined 
and accomplished, or who have greatly suffered ; and there was some- 
thing so touchingly innocent in this hand, that it seemed as if it had no 
occasion to confess with the rest of the lady, and would not even hear 
what its fair proprietress said, and therefore waited without, till .she 
was ready. But this lasted a long time, the lady must have had a 
terrible amount of sin to narrate. I could not wait any longer, my 
soul pressed an invisible parting-kiss on the fair hand which closed 
convulsively at the same instant, and that in the same peculiar 
manner in which the hand of the dead Maria was accustomed to 
close when I touched it. " In God's name," thought I, " what is the 
dead Maria doing in Trent ?"— and I hastened from the Cathedral. 



CHAPTER XYI. 



When I again crossed the market-place, the fruit-woman of whom 
1 have spoken, greeted me right amiably and confidently, as though 
we were old friends. "It is all one," thought I, "how we make 
an acquaintance, provided that it be but made." A box on the ear— 
or a box hurled at it— is not in faith a first class introduction ;— but 
then the fruit-woman and I looked at one another in as friendly a 
wise as though we had just mutually handed over tip-top letters, 
" introducing, &c," from our best friends. And the fruit- woman was 
by no means bad to look at. She was, it is true, already in that age 
when time stamps a fatal certificate on our brow of the active service 
we have done in youth ; but this had made her all the more cor- 

23 



— 266 — 

pulent, and what she had lost in youth she had won in weight. More- 
over her face still bore the traces of great beauty, and there was 
plainly written on it, as on old-fashioned vases, " To be loved and as 
loving, live, is the best joy that earth can give." But what gave her 
her most exquisite charm, was the style in which her hair was dressed 
— the carefully curled wig-like locks, thickly stiffened with pomatum 
and idyllically entwined with white bell-flowers. I gazed on this 
woman with the same rapt attention with which an antiquary would 
pore over a newly disinterred torso — yes, I could detect far more on this 
living human ruin — I could see on her, traces of all the civilization of 
Italy — the Etruscan, the Eoman, the Gothic, the Lombard, down to our 
own powdered modern age, and right interesting to me was the civilized 
manner of this old woman, in contrast to her business and to her 
passionate habits. Nor was I less interested by her stock in trade — 
the fresh almonds which I saw for the first time in their green original 
packages, and the fresh sweet-smelling figs, which lay piled up in 
heaps as common as pears with us. I was also delighted with th( 
great baskets full of fresh oranges and lemons, and — delightful sight ! — 
in one of the latter lay a child, beautiful as a picture, holding a little 
bell in his hand, and as the great bell of the cathedral began to sound, 
between every stroke, the boy rang his little bell, and smiled so for- 
getful of all worldly things up into the blue heaven, that the drollest 
child's fancies came into my own head, and like a child 1 placed my- 
self before the basket and began to eat and gossip with the fruit- 
woman. 

From my broken Italian she at first took me for an Englishman, 
but I confessed that I was only a German. She at once instituted 
a series of geographical, economic, horticultural, and meteorological 
questions as to Germany, greatly marvelling when I confessed to her 
that no lemons grew in our country — that we were obliged to squeeze 
very tightly the few which " went in" among us from Italy, and that 
in our despair we were obliged to make up our want of juice with " a 
little more rum." "Ah, my dear woman," said I, "in our land it is 
very frosty and foggy — our summer ,is only a green-washed winter, 
even the sun there is obliged to wear a flannel jacket to keep 
from catching cold, and what with this flannel sunshine our fruits get 
along very poorly — in fact — between you and I and the bedpost — 
the only ripe fruits we have are baked apples. As for figs, they come 
to us like oranges and lemons from distant lands, and by the time 
they arrive no one would give a fig for them ; only the worst of them 
ever reach us fresh, and these are so very bad that any one who is 



— 267 — 

induced to take thern for nothing- always brings an action for damages 
against the giver. As for almonds* we have only the inflamed and 
swollen sort, in short we are wanting in all the nobler fruits, and 
have nothing but gooseberries, pears, hazel-nuts, and similar canaille. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



I was really delighted to have made a good acquaintance so soon 
after arriving in Italy, and had not deeper feelings drawn me to the 
South, I should have remained in Trent by the good fruit-woman, by 
the good figs and almonds*by the little bell-ringer, and to tell the truth, 
by the beautiful girls, who streamed by in hordes. I do not know if 
other travellers would here admit the use of the word " beautiful," 
but the Trent females pleased me most unexceptionably. They were 
just the sort which I love ; — and I love those pale elegiac faces 
from which great black eyes gaze forth in love-sickness ; I love the 
dark hue of those proud necks which Phoebus too has loved and 
kissed brown ; I love those over-ripe necks with purple dots in them, 
which seem as if wanton birds had been picking at them ; but 
above all I love that genial warm-blooded gait, that silent music of 
the whole body, those limbs which undulate in the sweetest measures, 
voluptuous, pliant, divinely lewd, dying in breathless idleness — and 
then once more etherially sublime and ever highly poetical. I love 
such women as I love Poetry itself, and these melodiously moving 
forms, this human orchestra as it rustled musically past me found 
echo in my heart, and awoke in it its sympathetic tones. 

It was now no longer the magic power of a first surprise, the 
legend-like mystery of some wild and wondrous apparition — it had 
become that tranquil spirit which studied those female forms as they 
passed along, just as a true critic reads a poem. And by observing 
in this wise, we discover much — much that is sad and strange, the 
wealth of the past, the poverty of the present, and the . great pride 
which still remains. Gladly would the daughters of Trent bedeck 
themselves in silk and in satin as in the days of the Council, when their 
city bloomed in velvets and satin — but the Council did nothing for 
them ; the velvet is shabby, the satin in rags, and nothing remains 



*The word almond is applied in German as in English, not only to thr fruit of that 
naiae, but to the tonsils. 



— 268 — 

to the poor children save an empty tawdry show, which they carefully 
preserve during the week, and with which they attire themselves 
only on Sunday. But many have not even these remains of bygone 
luxury, and must get along as they best can with the plain and 
cheaper manufactures of the present day. Therefore there is many a 
touching contrast between body and garment, the exquisitely carved 
mouth seems formed to command, and is itself scornfully over- 
shadowed by a wretched hat with crumpled paper flowers, the 
proudest breasts heave and palpitate in a frizzle of coarse woolen 
imitation lace, and the most spiritual hips are embraced by the 
stupidest cotton. Sorrow, thy name is cotton — and brown-striped 
cotton at that ! For, alas, nothing produced in me such sorrowful 
feelings as the sight of a fair Trent girl, who in form and complexion 
resembled a marble goddess, and who wore on this antique noble 
form a garment of brown-striped cotton, so that it seemed as though 
the petrified Niobe had suddenly become merry, and had disguised 
herself in our modern small-souled garb, and now swept in beggarly 
pride and superbly helpless through the streets of Trent. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



When I returned to the Locanda delV Grande Europa, where I had 
ordered a good pranzo, I was really so dispirited that I could not 
eat, and that is saying a great deal for me. I sat down before the 
door of the neighboring Bottega, refreshed myself with sherbet, and 
spoke thus — 

" Whimsical, blue-devilled heart ! now thou art in Italy — why art 
thou not tiri-liring ? Have perhaps the little serpents which twined 
so elosely within, come with thee to Italy, and do they now rejoice, 
and does their common rejoicing awaken in thy bosom that picturesque 
sorrow which so strangely stings, and dances, and pipes, as in the olden 
time? And- why should not the old sorrows also rejoice in thei? 
turn ? Here in Italy all is so beautiful, in these ruined marble 
palaces, sighs re-echo far more romantically than in our neatly tiled 
little houses ; we can weep far more voluptuously beneath those 
laurels than under our ill-natured angular fir-trees, and is it not far 
sweeter to yearn and long away our souls deep into the ideal cloudy 
form3 of the heavenly blue of Italy, than into the ashy grey of a 
German week-day heaven, where even the clouds only cut honest, 



— 269 — 

common, citizen grimaces, and stupidly gape down. Remain in my 
breast ye sorrows ! Ye will not find after all a better lodging place. 
Ye are dear, and worth keeping, and nobody knows how to take 
better care of you than I, and I confess that ye are a great pleasure. 
And after all, what is pleasure ? At best an intensely exquisite, 
convulsive pain ! 

I believe that the music which without exciting my attention rang 
before the Bottega and attracted a crowd of listeners, had melo- 
dramatically accompanied this monologue* It was a singular trio, 
consisting of two men, and a young harp-girl. One of the men, clad 
as if for winter in a white overcoat, was a powerful figure, with a 
full red, bandit face, which blazed out from among the black hair of 
his head and beard, like a threatening comet. He held between his 
legs a monstrous bass-viol, on which he sawed away as furiously as 
though he had, in the Abruzzi, conquered some poor traveller, and 
was desperately cutting his throat. The other was a tall, meagre 
old man, whose lean limbs tottered in a worn-out black dress, and 
whose snow-white hair contrasted sorrowfully with his buffo song 
and his crazy caperings. It is sad enough when an old man must, 
from poverty, lay aside the dignity of age and give himself up to 
pranks and tricks ; but how much sadder is it when he must do this 
before his own child ! — and that girl was the daughter of the old 
buffo, and she accompanied on the harp his low jests, or laying it 
aside, sang with him a comic duett in which he played the enamoured 
old man, and she the mocking young amante. Moreover, the girl 
appeared to have hardly entered her teens — yes, it seemed as though 
they had rudely made a woman of her ere she had come to maiden- 
hood — and not a virtuous woman at that. Hence came that green- 
sickly withering, and that shrinking displeasure of the fair face, 
whose proudly thrown traits seemed to scorn all pity ; hence that 
secret vexedness of the eyes which gleamed defiantly under their 
black triumphal arches ; hence the deep tone of sorrow which con- 
trasted so unnaturally with the fair and laughing lips which it 
escaped ; hence the sickliness of the all too delicate limbs, which a 
short and painfully violet blue silk fluttered around, so far as possible. 
Many colored and violently contrasted satin ribbons waved like flags 
around her old straw hat, and her breast was symbolically ornamented 
by a just opening rose-bud, which seemed rather to have been pulled 
open than to have naturally unfolded itself from among its fresh 
verdant moss. Meanwhile there was perceptible in the poor girl — 
in this spring over which death had already breathed — an indes- 

23* 



- 270 — 

cribable charm, a grace which expressed itself in every glance and 
motion and tone, and which did not disappear even when with her 
body thrown forwards, she danced with mocking lasciviousness 
towards the old man, who, quite as immodestly, tottered towards 
her in the same attitude. The more shamelessly she acted, the 
deeper was the pity she awoke in my bosom, and when her song 
welled forth sweet and wondrous from her breast, as if imploring 
forgiveness — oh, then the little serpents leaped up in ecstasy within 
me, and bit into their own flesh for joy. Even the rose seemed to 
gaze imploringly on me — yes, once I saw it even tremble and grow 
pale, but at that instant the trills of the girl's voice rose so much 
more merrily on high, the old man bleated, goat-like, so much more 
passionately, and the red comet-face martyred his bass-viol so much 
more savagely, that there came forth the most terrifically funny tones, 
and the audience rejoiced more madly than ever. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 



It was a real Italian composition, from some favorite comic opera, 
of that strange sort which gives the fullest scope to Humor, and in 
which the latter can abandon himself to all his mad joy, his crazy 
feelings, his laughing sorrow, and his life-longing death inspiration. 
It was altogether in the manner of Rossini, as displayed in the 
Barber of Seville. The scorners of the Italian sehool, who would fain 
destroy the character of this sort of music, will not escape their well- 
deserved punishment in hell, and are perhaps damned in advance to 
hear through all eternity nothing but the fugues of Sebastian Bach. 
It grieves me to think that so many of my friends will not escape 
this punishment, and that among them is Eellstab, who will be 
damned with the rest, unless before his death he is converted to the 
true faith of Eossini. Eossini ! divino Maestro ! Helios of Italy, 
who spreadest forth thy rays over the world, pardon my poor coun- 
trymen who slander thee on writing and on printing paper ! I how- 
ever rejoice in thy golden tones, in thy melodious rays, in thy gleam- 
ing butterfly dreams which so merrily played around me and kissed 
my heart as with the lips of the graces. Divino Maestro — forgive 
my poor countrymen who do not see into thy depth, because thou 
coverest it with roses, and to whom thou dost not seem sufficiently 
profound, because thou soarest so lightly as on divine wings ! It 
is true, that to love the Italian music of the present day, and to 



— 271 — 

arrive through love at its comprehension, one should have the people 
themselves before his eyes — their heaven, their character, their 
glances, their joys, their sorrows ; in short, their entire history from 
Romulus, who founded the holy Eoman realm, until that later time 
when it perished under Romulus Augustulus II. Even the use of 
speech is forbidden to poor enslaved Italy, and she can only express 
by music the feelings of her heart. All her resentment against 
foreign dominion, her inspiration of liberty, her rage at the conscious- 
ness of weakness, her sorrow at the memories of past greatness, 
her faint hopes, her watching and waiting in silence, her yearning for 
aid : — all is masked in those melodies which glide from an intense 
intoxication of animal life into elegiac weakness, and in those panto- 
mimes which dart from flattering caresses into threatening rage. 

This is the esoteric sense of the comic opera. The exoteric sen- 
tinel, in whose presence they are sung and acted, does not surmise 
the inner meaning of those jovial love-stories, love-longings and love- 
mockeries, beneath which the Italian hides his deadliest thoughts of 
freedom, as Harmodius and Aristogeiton hid their daggers in 
wreaths of laurel. "It is all nonsensical stuff," says the exoteric 
sentinel, and it is well that he sees it not. For if he did, then the 
impresario with his prima donna and prima reomo, would soon be 
compelled to walk those planks which now set forth a festival, a 
commission of inquiry would soon be instituted, all treasonable trills 
and revolutionary roulades would be protocolled ; they would arrest 
innumerable Harlequins who are involved in extensive ramifications 
of horrible plots, even Tartaglia, Brighella, and the suspicious old 
Pantaloon would be locked up, the papers of the Dottore of Bologna 
would be put under seal, and under all these family troubles Colum- 
bine would weep her eyes red. But I myself think that there is 
little danger of this coming to pass, for the Italian demagogues are 
far shrewder than our poor Germans, who with a similar intention 
have also disguised themselves like black fools with black foolscaps, 
but who appeared so disagreeably melancholy, and seemed so dan- 
gerous by their deep earnest clown-leaping, which they call " turning,'' 
and made up such serious faces, that they finally attracted the atten- 
tion of government and got themselves into prison. 



— 272 — 



CHAPTER XX. 

The little harp-girl must have remarked that I, while she sang and 
played, often looked at the rose on her bosom, and when I laid on 
the plate, when it went round, a piece of money which was not alto- 
gether too small, she slily laughed and mysteriously asked in a 
whisper, "if I would like to have her rose?" 

Now I am the politest man in the world, and would not for all the 
world slander a rose, even though it be a rose which has already 
wasted some of its perfume! "And if," thought I, "it no longer 
smells perfectly fresh, and no longer breathes the odor of sanctity 
and virtue, like the Eose of Sharon, what is that to me who have 
such a devil of a cold in my head ? And it is only mankind who are 
so particular in these little matters. The butterfly asks not of the 
rose, " Hath another already kissed thee ?" Nor does the rose 
inquire, " Hast thou ere this fluttered around another ?" And it 
happened about this time that night came stealing on, " and by night," 
thought I, " all flowers are black — the sinfullest rose quite as much so 
as the most virtuous parsley." Well, and good — without hesitation 
I said to the little harp-girl : " Si, Signora, * * * " 

Gentle reader — form no evil fancies. It had grown dark and the 
stars shone clear and holily into my heart, while in the heart itself 
trembled the memory of the dead Maria. I recalled that night 
when I stood before the bed whereon lay the beautiful pale corpse 
with soft, silent lips. I thought again on the strange glance which 
the old dame, who was to watch the body, cast on me, when for some 
hours I was to relieve her of the task. I thought again of the night- 
violet* which stood in a glass on the table, and which smelt so strangely. 
And a suspicion shuddered through my veins, as to whether it were 
really a draught of air which extinguished the lamp ? Or was there 
really no third person in the chamber ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 



I wext early to bed, and quickly fell to sleep, losing myself in the 
wildest dreams. I dreamed myself a few hours back, I came again 
into Trent, I was again in amazement as before, and all the more so, 



* JSrftchvioU — Night smelling rocket. 

22 



— 273 — 

because I saw nothing but flowers instead of human beings walking 
in the streets. 

There were wandering glowing pinks, who voluptuously fanned 
themselves, coquettish balsamines, hyacinths, with pretty empty bell 
heads, and behind them a party of mustachioed narcissuses and disor- 
derly larkspurs. At one corner two loose-strifes* were quarrelling 
and scolding. From the windows of a sickly-looking old house, peered 
a spotted stock-gilliflower, decked off in ridiculous wise, while from 
within pealed a delicately perfumed violet voice. On the balcony of 
the great palazzo in the market-place, all the nobility were assembled, 
all the high noblesse, viz. : the lilies, who toil not neither do they spin, 
although Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them. 
I even thought that I saw the plump fruit- wife, though when I looked 
more closely, it was indeed the fruit-wife no longer, but a wintry 
sass-afras, who at once burst out on me with — •" What d'ye want, 
you green-top ? You pickled cowcumber ! You're a blossom now, 
arn't ye ! Wait till I water you !" In terror I ran into the cathe- 
dral, and almost ran over an old lame mother-wort, whose prayer 
book was carried for her by a little coxcomb. But in the cathedral 
all was right pleasant — there in long rows were the tulips, piously 
nodding their heads. In the confessional sat a dark monk's hood, 
and before him kneeled a flower, whose face was not visible. But it 
breathed forth a perfume so strangely familiar, that I shuddered as I 
thought of the night-violet, which stood in the chamber where the 
dead Maria lay. 

As I again left the cathedral, I met a funeral procession of nothing 
but roses with black " weeds," and white handkerchiefs, and, ah ! — 
on the bier lay the early plucked rose with which I had become 
acquainted on the bosom of the little harp-maiden. She now looked 
far gentler, but all snow-white — a white-rose corpse. They set down 
the coffin in a little chapel ; where there was nothing but weeping 
and sighing, and finally an old hell'e'bore, got up and delivered a long 
funeral sermon, in which he said much of the virtues of the departed, 
of this earthly vale of tears which availeth naught, of a better being, 
of Love, Hope, and Faith, all in a nasal singing tone, a well watered 
oration, and so long and long winded, that I at last awoke. 



* Loose-strife — lysimachia slrida. In the original Heine, makes these quarrelling 
flowers to be Masliebchen — which means maple-daisy, or marsh marigold. 



— 274 



CHAPTER XXII. 

My vetturino had harnessed his horses in advance of Phoebus, and 
we reached Ala before dinner time. Here the vetturine are accustomed 
to stop a few hours and change horses. 

Ala is a real Italian nest of a place. It is picturesquely situated 
on the slope of a mountain, a river ripples past it, and pleasant green 
vines flourish here and there, amid the stuck-together beggar palaces, 
which hang one over the other. On a corner of the warped market- 
house, no bigger than a hen-coop, is inscribed in great imposing 
letters : Piazza di San Marco. On the stone fragment of a massive 
coat of arms of an ancient, noble family, sat a little boy, manifesting 
in his need, any thing but respect for the relic. The clear sunlight 
shone on his naive nudity, and he held in his hand a picture of a saint, 
which he devoutly kissed. A little girl — beautiful as a statue, stood 
by in rapt attention, blowing at times an accompaniment on a penny 
trumpet. 

The tavern where I dined was thoroughly Italian. Above on the 
first story was a full gallery looking towards the court-yard, in which 
lay broken wagons and yearning piles of manure, and wherein were 
turkeys with ridiculous red wattles, and beggarly proud peacocks, 
besides half a dozen ragged sun-burnt children, who were aiding in 
the mutual improvement of their capillary attractions after the Bell 
and Lancasterian methods. By means of this balcony, I passed by 
the broken iron balustrade into a broad, echoing chamber. The 
floor was of marble, in the midst stood a great bed on which fleas 
were consummating their nuptials, while on every side was all the 
magnificence of dirt. The host leaped here and there to fulfil my 
commands. He wore a violently green frock coat, and a manifoldly 
moving countenance in which was a humpbacked nose, on the centre 
of which sat a red wart, which reminded me of a red-coated monkey 
on a camel's back. He sprang hither and thither, and it seemed to 
me as though the red monkey were leaping about in like manner. He 
was an hour in bringing any thing, and when I rated him soundly for 
it, he assured me on his word that I spoke Italian admirably. 

I was obliged to content myself for a long time with the agreeable 
perfume of roast meat, which was wafted towards me from the doorless 
kitchen just opposite, in which the mother and daughter sat side by 
side, singing and plucking chickens. The first was remarkably cor- 
pulent, with breasts which sprang boldly outward and yet were still 



— 275 — 

diminutive as compared to the colossal antitype, so that the one 
reminded me of the " Institutes" of the Roman Law,- while the other 
seemed their enlargement in the Pandects. The daughter, a by no 
means very large, but still stoutly built person, was also inclined to 
corpulency, but her rosy fatness was by no means to be compared to the 
ancient tallow of the mother. Her features were not soft, not enchant- 
ing with the charms of youth, but still beautifully cut, noble and 
antique ; the eyes and hair of brilliant black. The mother on the 
contrary had flat', stumpy features, a rosy-red nose, blue eyes which 
looked like violets boiled in milk and lily-white powdered hair. Now 
and then il Signor padre came leaping in and asked for this or that 
dish or implement, when he was advised in calm recitative to look for 
it himself. Then he smacked with his tongue, hunted in the drawer, 
tasted from the boiling pot, burned his mouth, and hopped again out, 
and with him his camel nose and the red monkey on it. And behind 
him rang forth merry trills, like pleasant mockery and family joking. 

But a thunder stroke suddenly interrupted this agreeable and 
almost idyllic family scene, as a square built fellow with a lowering 
murderous face leaped in, and screamed something that I did not 
understand. As both the women made emphatic gestures of denial, 
he became insane with rage, spitting fire and flame like an ill-natured 
young Vesuvius. The landlady seemed to be in trouble, and whis- 
pered assuaging words, which had however a contrary effect, so that 
the raging wretch seized an iron shovel, smashed divers unfortunate 
plates and bottles, and would have struck down the unfortunate 
woman, had not the daughter grasped a long kitchen knife and 
threatened to run him through, unless he at once vanished. 

It was a beautiful sight — that of the girl standing there sallow and 
pale, and petrified with rage, like a marble statue, her very lips pale, 
the eyes deep and death-like, a blue swollen vein crossing her brow, 
the black locks twining around it like snakes, a bloody knife in her 
hand, — I trembled with delight, for I fancied that I saw before me 
the image of Medea, as I have often dreamed her in my youthful 
nights when I have fallen to sleep on the dear bosom of Melpomene, 
the darkly beautiful goddess. 

While all this was going on, the Signor padre never once ran off 
his track, but with habitual busy calmness picked up the shards 
from the soil, collected the plates which yet remained alive, and 
brought me first, soup with Parmesan cheese, roast meat, hard and 
solid as German honesty, crabs red as love, spinach green as hope, 
with eggs ; and for dessert, onions which brought tears of emotion to 



— 276 — 

my eyes. "It's nothing — it's only Pietro's way." said he, as I glanced 
in wonder towards the kitchen, and in fact after the great cause of 
all the difficulty had made himself scarce, it seemed as if nothing had 
happened ; mother and daughter singing calmly as before, as they 
sat and plucked chickens. 

The bill convinced me that the Signor padre also understood the 
sublime art of "plucking," and when I in addition to his demand 
also gave him a buono mano, he bowed in such estatic delight that the 
red monkey nearly fell from its seat. Then I nodded in a friendly 
manner into the kitchen, received as friendly a salute in return, 
quickly jumped into the coach, drove rapidly along the plains of 
Lombardy, and arrived about evening in the ancient, world-renowned 
town Yerona. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



The varied power of new appearances moved me only dimly and 
forebodingly in Trent, like the tremor of a legend ; but, in Yerona, 
I was seized by a mighty feverish dream full of hot colors, accurately 
designed forms, ghostly trumpet clang, and the far away roar of 
weapons. Many a dark old palace stared on me as though it would 
confide to me some ancient secret, and withheld it only on account 
of the officious crowd of e very-day mortals, begging me to come 
again by night. Yet, despite the tumult of the throng and the wild 
sun which cast over me its red light, here and there some dark old 
tower whispered to me some deeply significant word ; here and there 
I overheard the murmurings of broken columns, and as I passed 
along a small flight of steps which led to the Piazza de Signori, 
the stones narrated to me a fearfully bloody story, and I read on the 
corner the words — Scala mazzardi. 

Yerona, the ancient world-renowned city, situated on both sides 
of the Adige, has been in all ages the first halting place for the 
great German emigrations of tribes who left their cold Northern 
forests and crossed the Alps, to rejoice in the golden sunshine zt 
pleasant Italy. Some went further on — others were well enough 
pleased with the place itself, and made themselves at home and com- 
fortable in it, and put on their silk dressing-gowns and promenaded 
cheerfully among flowers and cypresses, until new comers, who still 
had on their iron garments, arrived from the North and crowded 



— 277 — 

them away — an oft-repeated tale, and one called by historians the 
emigration of races. If we wander through the district of Yerona, 
we find startling traces of those days, as well as relics of an earlier 
and of a later age. The amphitheatre and the triumphal arch 
reminds us of the Roman age, the fabulous relics of so many Roman- 
esque ante-gothic buildings, recall Theodoric, that Dietrich of Bern, 
of whom Germans yet sing and tell ; mad fragmonts bring up Alboin 
and his raging Longobardi; legendary monuments speak of Carolus 
Magnus, whose paladins are chiselled on the gate of the Cathedral 
with the same frank roughness which characterized them in life ; it 
all seems as though the town were a great tavern, and as peopl * in 
inns are accustomed to write their names on walls and windows, so 
have the races who have travelled through Yerona left in it traces 
of their presence ; frequently, it is true, not in the most legible hand, 
since many a German tribe had not then learned to write, and was 
obliged to smash something by way of leaving its mark, which was 
also very well in its way, as these ruins which they made speak more 
intelligibly than the most elaborate writing. And the barbarians 
who now dwell in the old hostelrie will not fail to leave similar tokens 
of their presence, having neither poets or sculptors to hand down 
their memory to posterity. 

I remained but one day in Yerona, constantly marvelling at novel- 
ties, gazing at one time on the ancient buildings, at another on the 
human beings who thronged past in mysterious haste, and finally at 
the divinely blue heaven which limited the whole strange scene like a 
costly frame, and seemed to make of it a painting. But it is right queer 
when a man sticks himself into a picture which he has just been 
looking at, and is occasionally laughed at by his fellow figures, and 
by the female ones at that, as happened to me very pleasantly in 
the Piazza delle Erbe. This place is the vegetable market, and there 
T found abundance of delightful forms, women and girls, longing, great- 
eyed faces, bodies in which one could dwell very comfortably, excit- 
ingly brunette-colored, naively dirty beauties, much better adapted to 
night than to day. The white or black veils which the city women 
wear, were so cunningly entwined around their breasts that they 
displayed more of the beautiful forms than they concealed. The 
girls wore their hair in chignons, pierced with one or more golden 
arrows or silver rods terminated by an acorn. The peasant women 
generally wore small straw hats shaped like plates, with coquettish 
flower3 on one side of the head. The dress of the men differed lesa 

24 



— 278 — 

from that of our own, and only the immense black beard which 
came like bushes over their cravats was to me a little startling. 

If we study these people more attentively, the men as well as the 
women, we find in their features as well as in their whole being the 
traces of a civilization which differs from our own in this, that it is 
evidently derived from the Roman times, and has only modified itself 
according to the character of the casual rulers of the land. Civiliza- 
tion has with them no new and startling features as among us, where the 
oaken trunk was first sawn, as it were, but yesterday, and where every 
thing smells of varnish. It seems as though this race in the Piazza 
delle Erie, has during the course of time only changed clothes and 
language, while the spirit of their customs has undergone but little 
modification. The buildings which surround the place do not appear 
to have adapted themselves so well to the change of circumstances, 
but they do not look on us the less pleasantly, and their glance 
strangely moves the soul. There stand the high old palaces in 
Venetian-Lombard style, with, countless balconies and smiling fres- 
coes ; in the midst rises a single monumental column, a fountain and 
the stone image of a saint ; here we see a whimsical white and red 
striped Podesta, who rises behind a vast pillar gate — there we behold 
an old four-corner church tower, on which the hand of the clock is 
broken, and its figures half obliterated, so that even time seems des- 
troying itself — and over all rests that romantic enchantment which 
breathes so pleasantly over us from the fantastic poems of Ludovico 
Ariosto, or of Ludovico Tieck. 

Near this place is a house, which, on account of a hat which is 
chiselled in stone over the inner door, is supposed to be the palace of 
the Capulets. It is now a dirty inn for wagoners and coachmen, and 
has for a sign, a red-painted leaden hat, full of holes. Not far off, in 
a church, they show the chapel in which, according to the legend, the 
unfortunate lovers were married. A poet gladly visits such places, 
even when he himself laughs at the easy superstition of his heart. 
I found in this chapel a solitary woman — a care-worn, faded being — 
who, after long kneeling and praying, arose, sighing, gazed strangely 
on me with a sickly, silent glance, and finally tottered weakly away 

The tombs of the Scaligeri are also near the Piazza delle Erbe. 
They are as wonderfully splendid, and it is a pity that they should 
stand in a narrow corner, where they must, crowd together to take 
up as little room as possible, and where there remains but little space 
for the visitor to behold them aright. It seems as though we saw 
in this an historical comparison. The race of the Scaligeri fills 



— 279 — 

but a small corner in Italian history, but that corner is crowded with 
deeds of daring, splendid plans, and all the magnificence of pride. 
And we find them on their monuments as in history — proud iron 
knights, on iron steeds, and among them, surpassing in splendor, Can 
Grande, the uncle, and Mastino, the nephew. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Much has been said of the amphitheatre of Verona; it is large 
enough to give space to many remarks, and there is no remark which 
may not find a space in it. It is built altogether in that earnest, 
practical style, whose beauty consists of perfect solidity, and which 
like all public buildings of the Romans, breathes out a spirit which 
is nothing else save the spirit of Rome itself. And Rome? Who is 
so soundly ignorant, that his heart does not beat at the mention of 
this name, and whose soul is not at least thrilled by a traditional 
terror ? For myself I confess that my feelings are rather those of 
fear than pleasure, when I reflect that I shall soon tread on the lair 
of old Rome itself. " Old Rome is long dead," said I, soothingly to 
myself, " and thou wilt have the pleasure of regarding her fair corpse, 
without danger. But then the Falstaffian thought came into my 
head : " What if she were not as yet really dead, and has only feigned 
to be so, and should suddenly arise — the thought is terrible." 

When I visited the amphitheatre, comedy was being played in it ; 
a little wooden stage was erected in its midst, on which all sorts of 
Italian harlequinry was being acted, and the spectators sat partly on 
little chairs and partly on the high stone benches of the ancient 
amphitheatre. There I too sat and saw Brighella's and Tartaglia's 
mock fighting, on the same spot where the Romans once sat and 
gazed on their battles of gladiators and wild beasts. The heaven 
above me with its crystal-blue shell was still the same as of old. 
Little by little it grew dark, the stars shimmered out, Truffaldino* 
laughed, Smeraldina wailed, and finally Pantaloon came and joined 
their hands. The multitude clapped their approbation, and went their 
way rejoicing. The whole play had not cost one drop of blood. But 
it was only a play. But the plays of the Romans were no plays, 



* Those familiar with the "Fantasies of Callot," will have an accurate idea of the clia 
racters and appearance of these popular buffo-individuals. — [iVoie by Translator.} 



— 280 — 

these men could never have satiated their souls with mockeries, they 
lacked that child-like cheerfulness of soul ; and according to their 
stern natures, they manifested in their sports the harshest, bloodiest 
earnestness. They were not great men, but by their position they 
were greater than all the other children of earth — for they stood on 
Eome. When they descended from the Seven Hills, they were again 
small. Hence the littleness which we discover in their private life ; 
in Herculaneum and Pompeii, those palimpsests of nature, where the 
original old stone text is again brought to life, showing the traveller 
Roman life in little houses, with diminutive rooms, which contrast so 
singularly with those colossal buildings, which set forth their public 
life, and those theatres, aqueducts, fountains, highways, and bridges, 
whose ruins still awake our wonder. And this is just it — the Greeks 
were great in the idea of Art, the Hebrews in the idea of a holiest 
God, and the Romans in the idea of their eternal Rome, wherever it 
was by them fought, written, or built. The greater Rome became 
the more she extended this idea, the individual was lost in it, the 
great who rose above it were still borne along by it, and it makes the 
littleness of the little still more apparent. On this account the Romans 
were at the same time the greatest heroes and the greatest satirists — 
heroes while they acted and thought of Rome, satirists if they thought 
of Rome and judged of the deeds of their cotemporaries. Measured 
by such an enormous standard as the greatness of Rome, the greatest 
personality must have appeared dwarflike and even have attracted 
mockery. Tacitus is the grimmest of masters in this satire, because 
he, more than any other, felt in his soul the grandeur of Rome and 
the littleness of men. He is gloriously in his element whenever he 
can tell us what slauderous tongues prattled in the forum over some 
deed of imperial infamy ; and fiercely delighted when he has an oppor- 
tunity of detailing some senatorial scandal or some abject flattery 
which missed its mark. 

I remained walking for a long time on the upper benches of the 
amphitheatre, dreaming my way back into the dim past. As all 
buildings reveal most clearly in twilight their inner spirit, so did these 
walls whisper to me in their fragmentary lapidary style, the most 
mysterious things — for they spoke of the men of old Rome, and it 
seemed to me that I beheld their spirits wandering far below me like 
white shadows in the darkened circus. I seemed to see the Greeks 
with their inspired martyr eyes ! " Tiberius Sempronius ! ? ' cried I, 
aloud — " I will vote with thee for the Agrarian law !" And I saw 
Cesar too, wandering arm-in-arm with Marcus Brutus.'' " Are ye 



— 281 — 

again reconciled ?" I cried " We both believed that we were in the 
right," laughed Caesar up to me. " I knew not that a Roman still 
existed, and therefore thougi.t myself justified in putting Borne* in 
my pocket — and because my son Marcus was just this Eoman, he 
thought himself justified in making way with me." Behind the two 
glided Tiberius Nero with cloud-like limbs and undetermined mien. 
And there were women too, in the spectral throng ; among them 
Agrippina, with beautiful imperial features, like those of an antique 
statue, and on which the traces of pain seemed petrified. " Whom 
seekest thou, daughter of Germanicus !" Scarcely had I heard her 
wail, ere there rolled over all the heavy tones of a vesper-bell, and 
the horrible drumming of the evening roll call. The proud Roman 
spirits passed away, aud I found myself once more in the Austrian 
Christian present age. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



As soon as it is dark the beau monde of Verona promenades on 
the place La Bra, or sits there on little chairs before the cafes, sip- 
ping sherbet, and evening air and music. It is right pleasant sitting 
there — the dreaming heart cradles itself in soft tones, and rings back 
in echo to them. Often, as if reeling with sleep, it trembles when the 
trumpets re-echo and join in with full orchestra. Then the soul is 
again revived as with fresh sunshine, great flowering feelings and 
memories with vast black eyes come blooming up, and over them 
sweep thoughts like trains of clouds, proud, and slowly and eternally. 

I wandered until midnight through the streets of Verona. Little 
by little they were deserted and re-echoed strangely. In the half 
moon light, the buildings and their armaments glimmered strangely, 
aud many a marble face looked pale and painfully upon me. I walked 
quickly past the tombs of the Scaligeri, for it seemed to me as 
though Can Grande, courteous as ever towards poets — would descend 
from his horse, and accompany me as guide. " Still where thou art," 
I cried, " I need thee not. My heart is the best guide and tells all 
that passes in the houses, and excepting names and dates, tells them 
truly enough." 

As I came to the Roman triumphal gate, there swept through it a 
black monk, and far in the distance sounded a rumbling German 

24* 



— 282 — 

" Werdaf" (Who goes there ?") " Good friend," answered a laughing 
soprano. 

T3ut what woman's voice was that which thrilled so strangely sweet 
through my soul, as I ascended the Scala Mazzantif It was a song 
which echoed as if from a dying nightingale — death-delicately — and 
which seemed to cry to the very stone walls for aid. On this spot, 
Antonio Della Scala murdered his brother Bartolomeo, as the latter 
went to meet his lady-love. And my heart told me that she sat in 
her chamber awaiting her beloved, and sang to drown forboding fears. 
But soon the song and air seemed to me so strangely familiar — I had 
before heard those silken, fearful, bleeding tones ; they twined around 
me soft, tearful memories, and — oh thou stupid heart, said I to myself, 
hast thou then forgotten the song of the sick Moorish king simg to 
thee so often by the dead Maria ? And the voice itself — knowest 
thou no longer the voice of the dead Maria ? 

The long drawn notes followed me through every street, into the 
hotel Due Torre ■ — into my bed-room — into my dream. And there I 
saw once more my sweet, dead life, lying beautiful and motionless, 
the old washerwoman stole away, with a meaning side-glance, the 
night-violet breathed out its perfume, I again kissed the lovely lips, 
and the dear corpse slowly arose to offer again a kiss. 

If I only knew what it was that blew out the light ! 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

" Knowest thou the land where the bright lemon blows ?" 

Knowest thou the song ? All Italy is sketched in it, but in the 
sighing tones of longing and desire. Goethe in his Italian Journey has 
sung it more in detail, and whenever lie paints, he always has the 
original before his eyes, and we can rely on the truthfulness, both of 
outline and of coloring. And I find it appropriate to speak here, 
once for all, of Goethe's Italian Journey, and I do this the more 
willingly, since he made the same tour from Yerona through the 
Tyrol. I have already spoken of that work before I was personally 
familiar with its subject, and I now find my presentiment as to its 
merits fully established. Everywhere in it we find a practical com- 
prehension and the calm repose of nature. Goethe holds the mirror 
up to — or to speak more accurately — is himself the mirror of nature. 
Nature wished to know how she looked, and therefore created Goethe. 



— 283 — 

He even reflects the thoughts and intentions of nature, and we should 
not judge harshly of some enthusiastic " Goethian" especially in the 
dog-days, if he is at times so astonished at the identity of the object 
mirrored with its original, that he ascribes to the mirror a power of 
creating similar objects. A certain Mr. Eckermann once wrote a 
book on Goethe, in which he solemnly assures us that if the Lord 
on creating the world had said to Goethe, " dear Goethe, I am now, 
the Lord be praised, at an end. I have created everything except 
the birds and the trees, and you would oblige me by getting up these 
trifles for me" — then Goethe would have finished them all in the 
spirit of the original design, — the birds with feathers, and the trees 
of a green color. 

There is some truth in all this, and I even believe that in some 
particulars Goethe could have given the Lord a few valuable hints 
as to the improvement of certain articles, and would, for instance, 
have created IIerr Eckermann much more correctly by covering 
him with green feathers.* It is at least a pity that a tuft of green 
feathers does not grow out of Eckermann's head, and Goethe did in 
fact strive to remedy the defect as far as possible, by writing to Jena 
for a doctor's hat, and by placing it with his own hands on his 
admirer's poll. 

Next to Goethe's Italian Journey, I would commend Lady 
Morgan's " Italy," and the " Oorinna" of Madame de Stael. What 
4 these ladies lack in talent they make up in the manliness of thought, 
which is wanting in the great poet. For Lady Morgan has spoken 
like a man — she spoke scorpions to the hearts of brazen hirelings, and 
sweet were the notes of this fluttering nightingale of freedom. Of 
like nature — as many well know — was Madame de Stael, an amiable 
vivandiere in the liberal army, who ran courageously through the 
ranks of the combatants with her bits of enthusiasm, strengthening 
the weary, and fighting with them too — better than the best. 

As for descriptions of Italian towns, William Muller gave us a 
review of them some time since in " Hermes." Among the older 
German writers in this line, the most distinguished in genius or origi- 
nality are Moritz, Archenholtz, Bartels, the brave Seume, Arndt, 
Meyer, Benkowitz, and Kehfus. I know but little of the more 
recent tourists, and I have derived from them but little pleasure or 
profit. Among these I may mention the " Home, the Eomans, and 
the Koman Women" of the too early deceased W. Muller — ah ! ho 



* J la poll-parrot. 

21* 



— 284 — 

was a German poet ! — then the journey of Kephalides — which is a 
little dry ; Lesmann's " Cisalpine Leaves" — which is a little too 
watery, and finally , the " Tours in Italy, since 1822. of Frederick 
Thiersch, Ludwig Schorx, Edward Gerhardt, and Leo von 
Klenze." Only the first part of this work has as yet appeared, and 
it consists principally of contributions from my dear and noble-hearted 
friend, Thiersch, whose humane glance is evident in every line.* 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Know'st thou the land where the hright lemon hlows ? 
'Mid dark green leaves the golden orange glows, 
A gentle hreeze sweeps o'er its happy lands. 
Calm lies the myrtles— high the laurel stands. 
Knowest thou it well? 

Oh there, oh there, with thee, 
How glad were I, loved one, to wander free 

Only don't go in the beginning of August, when you are liable to 
De roasted by the sun during the day, and to be devoured by fleas at 
night. And I moreover counsel thee, thou best of readers, not to 
travel from Yerona to Milan in the post coach. 

I rode in company with six bandits, in an unwieldly, bumping 
carozza, which on account of the all-prevailing dust was so carefully* 
shut up, that I could see but little of the beauty of the scenery. Only 
twice ere we gained Brescia, did my neighbor lift the side leather 
curtain in order to spit. The first time he did this, I saw nothing but 
some perspiring fir-trees, whichin their green, winter over-coats seemed 
to suffer greatly from the sultry summer heat ;• — the second time I 
saw a fragment of a wondrous clear blue lake, wherein the sun and a 
lean grenadier mirrored themselves. The latter of the pair — an 
Austrian Narcissus — gazed admiringly and joyfully at the accuracy 
with which his reflections imitated all his movements, when he pre- 
sented, shouldered, or aimed with his gun. 

I have but little to tell of Brescia, as I occupied myself during the 
time of my " residence" there in eating a good luncheon. No one can 



* Frederick Thiersch, well known from his contributions to the knowledge of the 
Greek language and art, and to sesthetics. The translator, who was while in Germany 
a pupil of Thiersch, trusts that he will not be accused of undue intrusion in warmiy 
assenting to Heixe's commendation of one, whom he, (the translator,) has also learned 
k-i esteem and admire. 



— 285 — 

Marne a poor traveller for satisfying bodily hunger in preference to 
the spiritual. Still I was conscientious enough, ere I re-entered the 
coach to inquire a few particulars relative to the town from a waiter, 
and learned of him that Brescia contained among other things, forty 
thousand inhabitants, one town hall, twenty-one coffee houses, twenty 
catholic churches, a madhouse, a synagogue, a menagerie, a house 
of correction, a hospital, an equally good theatre, and a gallows for 
those thieves who steal less than one hundred thousand dollars. 

I arrived about midnight in Milan, and went to Herr Reichmann's 
— a German whose hotel is fitted, up entirely in the German manner. 
It was the best inn in all Italy, said certain friends whom I there 
met, and who had mournful tales to relate relative to Italian swindling 
and taking in. Especially did Sir William curse as he assured 
me that if Europe is the head of the world, Italy is its bump 
of theft. The poor baronet had been obliged to pay in the Locanda 
Croce bianco at Padua not less than twelve francs for a poor break- 
fast, and at Vicenza some wretch of a waiter had demanded a gratuity 
for picking up for him a glove, just dropped from his coach. His 
cousin Tom said that all Italians are rogues, except that they do not 
steal. Had he been more attractive, he might have said the same 
of their women. The third in the party was a Mr. Liver whom I 
had left as a young calf in Brighton, and whom I now found a boeuf 
a la mode in Milan. He was dressed entirely as a dandy, and I have 
^iever met a mortal who better knew how to bring out the corners, 
with his figure. When he stuck his thumbs into his vest armlets he made 
nothing but angles — his very mouth folded up square as a brick. 
Withal he had a square head, small behind, pointed above, with a low 
forehead, and a very long chin. Among the English acquaintances 
whom I met in Milan was Liver's corpulent aunt, who seemed like 
an avalanche of fat, which had rolled down from the Alps in company 
with two snow-white, snow-cold winter geese, Miss Polly and Miss 
Molly. 

Do not accuse me, dear reader, of Anglomania, shoiud I very fre- 
quently speak of English people in this book. They are too numerous 
in Italy not to be mentioned; they sweep" over the land in swarms, 
they lodge in every inn, crowd every where to see every thing, and 
it is impossible to imagine an Italian orange blossom without think- 
ing of some pretty English girl smelling at it, or a picture gallery 
without a mob of Englishmen, who, guide-book in hand, go rushing 
around to make certain that every thing is there which is described 
in their guide-books. When we see this blonde, red-cheeked raca 



— 286 — 

with their shining coaches, many-colored lackeys, neighing blood- 
horses, green veiled chamber-maids, and other costly apparatus, 
inquisitive and ornamented, sweeping over the Alps, and through 
Italy, we can imagine that we see an elegant invasion. And in fact, 
the son of Albion, albeit he wears clean linen and pays cash down for 
every thing, is a civilized barbarian as compared with the Italian, 
who indicates a civilization now passing into barbarism. The former 
shows a suppressed rudeness, the latter a neglected refinement. And 
even the pale Italian faces, with the suffering white of their eyes, 
and their sickly delicate lips — how silently aristocratic do they seem 
as compared to stiff British faces with their vulgar ruddy health. 
The whole Italian race is internally sick, and sick people are invariably 
more refined than the robust, for only the sick man is really a man, 
his limbs have a history of suffering, they are spiritualized. I believe 
that by suffering, animals could be made human ; I have seen a 
dying hound who in his last agonies gazed on me with the glance of 
a man. 

The suffering expression of the Italians is most visible when we 
speak to them of the misfortunes of their country, and in Milan there 
is plenty of opportunity for that. That is the sharpest wound in the 
breast of an Italian, and it quivers and twitches when touched ever 
so lightly. They have on such occasions a peculiar shrug of the 
shoulders which inspires in me a strange pity. One of my Britons 
regarded the Italians as being politically indifferent, because they 
seemed to listen with equanimity, when we strangers chatted on the 
catholic emancipation and the Turkish war ; and he was unjust enough 
to say as much, mockingly, to a pale Italian with a jet black beard. 
We had the previous evening seen the debut of a new opera in La 
Scala, and witnessed the tremendous enthusiasm which a first success 
excites. ''You Italians," said the Englishman, "appear to be dead 
to every thing save music, which is the only thing that seems to excite 
you." " You do us injustice," said the pale one, shrugging his shoulders, 
" Ah !" sighed he — " Italy sits elegiacally dreaming on her ruins, and 
when she is at times suddenly awakened by the melody of a song and 
springs wildly up, this sudden inspiration is not due to the song itself, 
but rather to the ancient memories and feelings which the song has 
awakened — which Italy has ever borne in her heart, and which now 
mightily gush forth — and this is the meaning of the wild tumult which 
you have heard in La Scala" 

Perhaps this confession also explains the enthusiasm which Eos- 
sini's or Meyerbeer's operas have everywhere produced on the other 

28* 



— 287 — 

Bide of the Alps. If I ever in my life saw human madness it was at 
a representation of the Crociato in Egitto, when the music frequently 
underwent a sudden transition from soft wailing tones to wild active 
pain. Such madness is termed by Italians : furore. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Although I have here, dear' reader — the Brera and Ambrosiana 
being in my way — a glorious opportunity to serve up views on art, 
I will still suffer this cup to pass away from you, contenting myself 
with the remark that I have observed the pointed chin, which gives 
such a sentimental impression to so many pictures of the Lombard 
school, on many a pretty Lombardess in the streets of Milan. It 
has always been marvellously comforting and edifying to me when an 
opportunity presented itself to compare the works of a school with the 
originals which served as its models ; for thus I more accurately 
appreciated its character. Thus in the great fair of Rotterdam, the 
divine geniality of Jan Steen was suddenly revealed to me ; and thus 
at a later date I learned on Lung VArno the truth of form and the 
effective spirit of the Florentines, while in San Marco I caught the 
truth of colour and the dreamy s-uperficialty of the Venetians. Go to 
Rome, my dear soul — go to Rome — and there perhaps you may rise 
to a perception of the ideal and to the appreciation of Raphael. 

However there is one marvel at Milan — and by long odds the 
greatest — which I cannot leave unnoted — that is the Cathedral. 

From a distance it looks as though cut from white note paper, and 
when near it the observer is startled to find that this lace-like scissor- 
ing is all of undeniable white marble. The countless images of saints, 
which cover the entire building, which peep forth under little Gothic 
baldachins, and which rise from every point, form a petrified multitude 
which well nigh bewilders our senses. Yet if we study the entire 
work a while longer, we find that it is right pretty, colossally neat, a 
play thing for giant children. But it appears best in the midnight 
moonshine, for then all the white stone-men come thronging solemnly 
adown from their height, and sweep together over the place and 
whisper an old legend in our ear — a strange, secret tale of Galeazzo 
Visconti, who begun the Cathedral, and of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
who at a later day continued it. 

" D'ye see" — said to me a singular looking saint who had evidently 



— 288 — 

been but recently manufactured from bran new marble, " d'ye see, my 
old friends here cannot understand why the Emperor Napoleon 
worked away so industriously at the Cathedral. But I flatter myself 
that I have seen into the matter. He knew perfectly well that this 
great stone house was at any rate a very useful building, and that it 
might be used when Christianity shall have gone out of date." 

" When Christianity shall be out of date !" — I was fairly frightened 
to hear that there were saints who talked this way in Italy, and that 
in a place where Austrian sentinels with bear-skin caps and knapsacks 
were marching up and down. Any how the old stone chap was 
right, for the interior of the Cathedral is pleasant and cool in summer 
and cheerful and agreeable, and will be worth something, do what 
they will with it. 

The completion of this Cathedral was one of Napoleon's favorite 
ideas, and he was not wide of the mark when his power came to an 
end. The Austrians are now carrying it on. They are also working 
at the celebrated triumphal arch which is to conclude the Simplon 
road, though of course Napoleon's statue will not be placed on the 
summit of the arch, as was originally determined. At all events, 
the great Emperor has left behind him a monument which is better 
and more durable than marble, and which no Austrian can hide from 
observation. Long after the rest of us ordinary mortals have been 
mowed down by the scythe of Time, and have been blown away like 
chaff of the field, that statue monument will remain unscathed ; new 
races' will rise from the earth, will gaze bewildered on the image and 
pass away again to earth ;— and Time, incapable of injuring the form, 
will seek to involve it in legendary myths, and its tremendous history 
will finally be a myth. 

Perhaps after thousands of years some wonderfully shrewd school- 
master in a fearfully profound dissertation will prove beyond cavil, 
that Napoleon Bonaparte was identical with that other Titan who 
stole fire from the gods, and who for this trespass was chained to a 
solitary rock in the midst of the sea, as a prey to a vulture, which 
day by day gnawed away at his heart. 



289 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

My excellent friend and reader, I sincerely hope that you will 
not mistake me for an unconditional Bonapartist; my adoration is 
entirely for the genius and not for the deeds of the man. I love him 
beyond all limit up to the eighteenth Brumaire — when he betrayed 
freedom. And this he did, not from necessity, but from a secret 
predilection for aristocracy. Napoleon Bonaparte was an aristo- 
crat, a noble enemy of middle class equality, and it was an enormous 
mistake and misunderstanding when the European aristocracy, repre- 
sented by England, made such deadly war on him ; for although he 
intended to introduce a few changes into the personnel of this 
aristocracy, he still wished to uphold the majority of them and their 
actual principle ; he would have regenerated this aristocracy which 
now, after its last and certainly final victory, lies exhausted by age, 
loss of blood and weariness. 

Dear reader! let us here, once and for all, understand one another. 
I never praise the dead, but the human soul whose garment the deed 
is, and history is nothing but the soul's old wardrobe. But love 
sometime loves old hats and coats, and even so do I love the cloak 
of Marengo. 

" We are on the battle field of Marengo !" How my heart laughed 
as the postillion said this. I was in company with a very gentle- 
manly Lieflander, who rather played the Russian the evening before 
we had left Milan, and the next morning we saw the sun rise over 
the famed field of battle. 

It was here that General Bonaparte drank so mighty a draught 
from the goblet of renown, that in his intoxication he became Consul, 
Emperor, World-conqueror, and first grew sober at St. Helena. And 
it fared no better with us who also got tipsy with him, dreamed the 
same wild dreams, awoke in the same manner, and now in all the 
misery of soberness are making all sorts of reasonable reflections. 
And it often seems to us as if warlike reputation were an old- 
fashioned, out-of-date sort of pleasure, for under Napoleon, a battle 
attained its acme of significance, and he was perhaps the last of the 
conquerors. 

It really seems as though more spiritual than material interests 
were now being fought out, and as though universal history were no 
longer a robber-legend, but a ghost story. The grand lever which 

25 



— 290 — 

ambitious and avaricious princes were once wont to employ so indus- 
triously — that is to say, nationality, with all its vanity and hatred, 
is now musty and used up ; day by day the ridiculous prejudices of 
races are disappearing; all harsh peculiarities are disappearing in 
the universality of European civilization, there are no longer nations 
but parties, and it is wonderful to behold how these, despite the most ■ 
varied colours, recognize each other, and make themselves mutually 
intelligible, notwithstanding the difference of language. As there is 
a material policy of States, so there is also a spiritual party-policy ; 
and as the States' policy would quickly bring to a general, zealous 
European war, the smallest strife which should spring up between 
the smallest powers, where interest is the governing principle, so on 
the other hand, the smallest strife could not take place, in which, 
owing to the party-policy already alluded to, the general spiritual 
tendencies and meanings would not be at once understood, and by 
which the most distant and heterogeneous parties would find them- 
selves compelled to take side pro or contra. 

On account of this party-policy, which I call a spiritual-policy, 
because its interests are more spiritual and its ultimce rationes not 
metallic, they now form, as if by the medium of the States' policy, 
two great masses opposed to each other, fighting with glance and 
word. The watchwords and representatives of these two great 
parties change day by day — there is no lack of confusion— the 
greatest misunderstandings often arise, and these are often rather 
increased than explained by the authors, who form the diplomatists 
of the spiritual party ; but though heads may err, hearts still feel 
what they need, and time presses on with her great question. 

But what is the great question of the age ? 

It is that of emancipation. Not simply the emancipation of the 
Irish, Greeks, Frankfort Jews, West Indian negroes, and other 
oppressed races, but the emancipation of the whole world, and 
especially that of Europe, which has attained its majority and now 
tears itself loose from the iron leading-strings of a privileged aris- 
tocracy. A few philosophical renegades from freedom may forge, 
if they will, for us the most elaborate chains of conclusions, to prove 
that millions of men are born to be beasts of burden for a few thou- 
sand nobles, but they will never convince us until they make it clear, 
to borrow the expression of Yoltaire, that the former are born with 
saddles on their backs, and the latter with spurs on their heels. 

Every age has its problem, whose solution advances the world. 
The earlier inequality established by the feudal system in Europe, 



— 291 — 

was perhaps necessary, or a necessary condition of the advance of 
hum anity ; but now it impedes the latter, and represses the pulsa- 
tions of the civilized heart. The French, who are pre-eminently 
the race of social intercourse, have necessarily suffered most from 
this inequality which grates so harshly against the principles of 
sociability, they have sought to force equality by gently nipping off 
those heads which persisted in rising above the rest, and their revo- 
lution was the signal for a war of independence for the whole world. 

Honour to the French! — they have taken good care of the twa 
greatest needs of human society — of good eating and citizenly 
equality; they have made the greatest advances in cookery and in 
freedom, and if it ever comes to pass that we all hold together one 
grand dinner of jolly good-fellowship — and on this earth there is 
nothing better than an assembly of peers at a well-spread table — 
we will give the Frenchmen the first toast. It will be some time I 
know before this grand feast comes off, and before emancipation is 
finished up, — but it is bound to eome, this blessed time, when we, all 
reconciled and on a par, will sit together around the same table. 
Then in union we will fight against other evils of the world, perhaps 
at last against death itself — death, whose stern system of equality is 
not, to say the worst, so oppressive as the smiling theory of in- 
equality held by aristocracy. 

Laugh not, thou later reader. Every age believes that its battle 
is the most important — this is the true creed of the time in which it 
lives and dies, and we, too, will live and die in this religion of free- 
dom, which perhaps better deserves the name of religion than the 
hollow, long dead soul-spectre which we have qualified by that name. 
Our holy battle seems to us to be by far the mightiest ever yet fought 
on earth, though a historical presentiment tells us that our descend- 
ants will look down on this strife with perhaps the same indifference 
with which we regard the combats of the first men who fought against 
quite as terrible monsters, dragons and robber giants. 



292 — 



CHAPTER XXX. 

On the battle-field of Marengo, reflections come flying around in 
such flocks that one can almost believe that they are the same which 
many travellers have suddenly abandoned there in a hurry, and which 
now go sweeping about. I love battle-fields ; for, terrible as war is, 
it still sets forth the spiritual greatness of man, who has gone so far 
as to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy — Death. And just so with 
this battle plain, where Freedom danced on blood-roses her wanton 
bridal measures. For, in those days, France was a bridegroom who 
had invited all the world to a wedding, and then, as the song says, 

Hurrah ! upon the bridal eve, 

In merry joke, for pots, they broke 

Aristocratic heads. 

But, alas ! every inch which humanity advances costs streams of 
blood ; and is not that paying rather dear ? Is not the life of the 
individual worth as much as that of the entire race ? For every 
single man is a world which is born and which dies with him ; beneath 
every grave-stone lies a world's history. " Be silent," Death would 
say, " as to those who lie here," — but we still live, and will fight on in 
the holy battle for the freedom of humanity. 

" Who bow thinks of Marengo ?" said my travelling companion, 
the Liefiand Russian, as we rode over the fallow field. " At present 
all eyes are turned towards the Balkan, where my countryman, Die- 
bitsch, is fitting the turbans to the Turk's head — and you'll see that 
we'll take Constantinople this very year. Are you for Russia?" 

This was a question which I had rather have answered anywhere 
but on the field of Marengo. I saw, in the morning mists, the man 
in the little cocked hat and the gray cloak of battle — he darted on- 
wards, swift as a spirit, and far in the distance rang a terribly sweet 
" Allons enfans de la patrie." Yet, notwithstanding all this, I 
answered, "Yes, I am sound as to Russia." 

And in fact, in the wonderful change of watchwords and of repre- 
sentatives in the great battle, it has come to such a pitch that the 
most enthusiastic friend of revolution can only see the safety of the 
world in the victory of Russia, and must regard the Czar Nicholas 
as the gonfaloniere of freedom. Singular mutation ! Two years ago 
we cast the robe of this noble office upon an English minister. The 
howl of high Tory hatred against George Canning led our choice ; in 



— 293 — 

tke noble, humiliating sufferings which he endured, we saw guaran- 
tees of his fidelity, and as he died the death of a martyr, we put on 
mourning, and the eighth of August became a sacred day in the cal- 
endar of freedom. But we took the flags from Downing street and 
planted them anew in St. Petersburg, and chose for our standard- 
bearer the Emperor Nicholas, the Knight of Europe, who protected 
Greek widows and orphans against Asiatic barbarians, and who in 
that brave battle won his spurs. Again the enemies of freedom had 
betrayed themselves, and we again availed ourselves of the shrewd- 
ness of their hatred to learn what was for our own benefit. Again 
the wonted vision came to view, that we owed our representatives 
more to the elective majority of our enemies than to our own choice ; 
and as we gazed on the marvellously assorted multitude who sent 
forth their best wishes to Heaven for the safety of Turkey, and for 
the destruction of Eussia, we quickly found out who was our friend — 
or, rather, who was the terror of our foe. How the blessed Lord in 
Heaven must have laughed, when he listened to the cotemporary 
prayers of Wellington, the Grand Mufti, the Pope, Kothschild I., 
Metternich, and an endless mess of little nobles, stock-jobbers, priests 
and Turks, and all for one and the same thing — the safety of the 
Crescent ! 

What the alarmists have fabled over the danger to which we are ex- 
posed by the overgrowth of Eussia, is rank nonsense. We Germans, 
at least, have nothing to risk — a greater or less degree of servitude 
need not concern us, when the greatest of blessings, the being set 
free from the relics of feudalism and of priesthood is at stake. They 
threaten us with the dominion of the knout, but I for one will gladly 
take a little thrashing if I can only know for a certainty that our 
enemies will get their share of it. But I will bet that they will go 
as of old, fawning and wheedling up to the new powers that be, 
graciously smiling and proffering the most shameless services, and 
if it happens that they once for all must be knouted, they will con- 
dition for the privilege of a knout of honour— just as a nobleman in 
Siam, when punished, is stuck into a silken bag and is beaten with 
perfumed rods, while the criminal citizen is put into a common linen 
sack, and has his blows laid on with a stick utterly devoid of a sweet 
smelling savour. Well, we will grant them this privilege (since it is 
the only one) if they are only well whipped, and especially the Eng- 
lish nobility. People may recall, if they please, and as much as they 
please, that it was this very nobility which forced from despotism 
i lie Magna Charta, and that England, despite all her maintenance 

25* 



— 294 — 

of social inequality, has ever secured the personal liberty of the sub- 
ject, and that that country was a place of refuge for free souls when 
despotism subdued the entire continent; those are tempi passati! 
England, with her aristocracy, is graduall ysinking ; independent 
spirits have now a better place of refuge, and if all Europe become 
a single prison, there would still be another hole for escape, I mean 
America, and God be praised ! that hole is larger than all the prison 
itself. 

But these are all ridiculous whimsies, for if any one compares 
England and Russia, with a view to freedom, no doubt remains as 
to which is the right side to choose. Freedom has sprung in Eng- 
land from historical events — from privileges ; in Russia, from prin- 
ciples. The results of those events — like the events themselves — 
bear the stamp of the middle ages ; all England is congealed in 
mediaeval, never, to be rejuvenated institutions, behind which her 
aristocracy is entrenched, awaiting the death-struggle. But those 
principles from which Russian freedom sprung — or to speak more 
correctly, from which Russian freedom is daily developing itself, are 
the liberal ideas of our most recent times ; the Russian government 
is penetrated through and through with these ideas; its unlimited 
absolutism is rather a dictatorship, by which those ideas will be 
brought directly to life. This government is not rooted in feudalism 
and priestcraft ; it fights directly against the power of the nobles 
and of the church, for even Catharine limited the power of the 
church, and the Russian nobility exists by church service. Russia 
is a democratic state, I would gladly say, a Christian state, if I 
might be permitted to use this so often misused word in its sweetest 
and most cosmopolite sense, for the Russians, by. the very extent of 
their realm, are freed from the narrow-mindedness of a heathenish 
national vanity ; they are citizens of the world, lacking only five- 
sixths, since Russia embraces one-half dozenth of the inhabited 
globe. 

And faith! when a German-Russian, like my travelling companion, 
plays the brag-patriot, and talks about "our Russia" nnd " our 
Diebitsch," it seems to me as though I heard a herring calling the 
ocean his country and the whale his compatriot. 



295 — 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

"I am sound as to Bussia;" — I said on the battle plain of Ma- 
rengo, and quitted for a few minutes the coach, to offer up my 
morning devotions. 

The sun came forth gloriously, genially, confidently from beneath 
a triumphal arch of colossal masses of clouds. But my soul was 
like the poor moon, which stood paling away in heaven. She had 
wandered on in her lonely course in the desolate night, where happy 
fortune slept, and only spectres, owls and felons carried on their 
dark vocations ; and now, when the young day arose amid rays of 
rejoicing and fluttering flags of early morning flame, she must pass 
silently away — a single glance at the great world of light and she is 
lost in eternal mist. 

" It will be a fine day," cried my travelling companion, from the 
coach. " Yes — it will be a fine day," slowly re-echoed my praying 
heart, as it trembled with grief and joy. Yes, it will be a beautiful 
day, the sun of freedom will warm the world with a more thrilling 
joy than that which comes from cold aristocratic stars ; — there will 
spring up a new race, begotten in the embraces of free choice, and 
not in the bed of compulsion and under the control of clerical tax- 
gatherers ; and with free-birth there will arise in mankind free 
thoughts and free feelings of which we — poor born serfs — have no 
conception. Oh ! as little will they imagine how terrible was the 
night in which we lived and how cruel was our strife with terrible 
phantoms, gloomy owls, and hypocritical sinners ! Ah, we poor war- 
riors ! who must waste our life in such battles, and are exhausted 
and pale when the day of victory dawns ! The glow of sunrise 
will no more gild our cheeks and no longer warm our hearts — we 
must die like the fading moon. All too short is the measure of man's 
allotted path, at whose end lies the pitiless grave. 

I really do not know whether I deserve that a laurel wreath be 
laid on my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been 
to me only a holy plaything or a consecrated means whereby to at- 
tain a heavenly end. I have never attached much value to a poetic 
reputation, and I care little whether my songs are praised or found 
fault with. But ye may lay a sword on my coffin ; for I was a brave 
soldier in the War of Freedom for Mankind. 



!96 — 



CHAPTEE XXXII. 



During the noonday heat we sought shelter in a Franciscan mo- 
nastery, situated on a lofty elevation, and which with its dark cy- 
presses and white monks, peeped out like a holy shooting-box, looking 
down into the pleasant green vallies of the Apennines. Often in 
regarding these old churches, I know not which most to admire, the 
beauty of their vicinity, their great size, or the equally great and 
rock-like firm souls of their builders. They well knew that only 
their far-off descendants could complete the work ; and yet they 
quietly laid the foundation stone, and calmly placed one stone upon 
another until death called them from the work, and other architects 
continued that work, and in turn were laid in the grave — all in un- 
shaken belief in the eternity of the Catholic Church, and all equally 
assured of the same faith in the generations to come, who would 
build on where they had ceased to labour. 

It was the faith of the age, and the old architects lived and sank 
to sleep in this faith. Now, they lie before the doors of their antique 
churches, and it is to be hoped that their slumbers may be sound, 
and that they may not be awakened by the laughter of the later age. 
And it would be a sad thing for them — particularly for those who 
are buried near old unfinished cathedrals — should they suddenly re- 
vive some night, and gaze by the cold sad moonlight on their un- 
finished day's work, and find that the time for finishing them had 
passed away, and that their whole life had been spent in vain. 

Such is the voice of our own age, which has other problems and 
another faith. 

I once, in Cologne, heard a little boy ask his mother why they did 
not finish the half-built cathedral. He was a pretty child, and I 
kissed his bright intelligent eyes ; and, as his mother could give no 
answer to the question, I told him that now-a-days people had alto- 
gether different things to do. 

On the summit of the Apennines, not far from Genoa, we behold 
the sea ; between the green mountain peaks we catch glimpses of its 
blue waters, and ships which come forth here and there seem to sail 
strangely over the mountains. If we see this view during twilight, 
when the last rays of the sun begin playing a wondrous game with 
the earliest shades of evening, and when all hues and shapes twine 
dreamily together, — then a feeling as of old legends, steals over the 



— 297 — 

mind, the coach rolls along, the sweetest dreamiest shadows of the 
soul are revived, they tenderly greet, until at last in a vision we seem 
to be in Genoa. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



This city is old without antiquity, narrow without home-like snug- 
ness, and ugly beyond description. It is built on a rock, at the foot 
of amphitheatre-like hills, which hold in their embrace the loveliest 
bosom of the sea. The Genoese have consequently from nature one 
of the best and securest of harbours. And, as the whole town 
stands on a single rock, the houses must, for the sake of room, be 
built very high, while the streets are very narrow, so that the latter 
are very dark and close, only two of them admitting carriages. But 
the houses are chiefly used by their inhabitants, who are principally 
merchants, as storehouses, and as sleeping places by night. During 
the whole trafficking day, they run about town or sit before their 
house-doors — I should say, within their house-doors — otherwise oppo- 
site neighbours would knock their knees together. 

Seen from the sea-side, especially towards evening, the whole town 
gains in appearance. It lies there on the shore like the bleached 
skeleton of some castaway monstrous beast, dark ants which call 
themselves Genoese creep over it, blue waves dash it with foam, 
humming a lullaby, and the moon, the pale eye of night, looks down 
on it with sorrow. 

In the garden of the Palazzo Doria the old sea-hero stands like a 
Neptune in a water-basin. But the statue is forlorn and mutilated, 
the fountain is dry, and sea-mews nestle amid the dark cypresses. 
Like a boy always thinking of play, I was at once reminded by the 
name of Doria, of that of Frederic Schiller, the noblest, if not the 
greatest, of our German poets. 

Though mostly in decay, the palaces of the once powerful lords of 
Genoa, the nobili, are still very beautiful, displaying an excess of 
magnificence. They are nearly all situated on the two great streets 
known as the Strada nuova and Balbi. Of these palaces, the Du- 
razzo is the most remarkable. Here are many good pictures, among 
them Paul Veronese's Mary Magdalene washing the feet of 
Christ. The Mary is so beautiful that were she alive she would be 
in danger of a second seduction. I stood a long time before her — 



— 298 — 

but all ! sue did not look up. Christ stands there like a pious 
Hamlet — " Go to a nunnery !" Here I also found excellent Dutch 
paintings, and splendid works by Rubexs — the latter inspired to the 
fullest extent by the colossal geniality of the Netherlandish Titan, 
whose spirit-wings were so powerful that he would have soared to 
the sun, though a hundred tons of Dutch cheese had been tied to his 
legs. I cannot pass the smallest painting by this master without 
paying my tribute of admiration ; and all the more because it is now 
the fashion to glance at him with a shrug of the shoulder, on account 
of his lack of ideality. The historical school of Munich, spreads 
itself with peculiar magnificence in this sort of criticism. With 
what high-flown depreciation do the long-haired disciples of Corne- 
lius wander through the Rubens' Hall ! But perhaps their error 
is more intelligible when we reflect on the great contrast which 
Peter Cornelius himself forms to Peter Paul Rubexs. No greater 
opposites can be imagined — and yet, with all this, a notion occasion- 
ally comes into my head that there are points of affinity between 
them, which I rather surmise than understand. Perhaps there aro 
peculiarities of their northern country hidden in them, which pro- 
claim themselves to a third fellow-countryman — that is, to myself — 
like soft secret whispers. But this secret affinity does not consist of 
the Netherlandish joyousness and sprightliness of colour which laughs 
from all the pictures of Rubexs, so that we might almost believe 
that he had painted them in a glorious Rhine wine carouse, while 
dancing fair-music rang and piped around. Truly the pictures of 
Horxelius seem, on the contrary, to have been painted ou Good 
Friday, while the doleful songs of the processions swept through the 
street, and re-echoed in the atelier and in the heart of the painter. 
In productiveness, in boldness of conception, in genial originality, 
both are alike, both are born painters, and belong to the cycle of 
great masters who for the most part flourished in the time of 
Raphael — an age which was still capable of exercising a direct influ- 
ence on Rubexs, but which is so utterly removed from our own that 
we are almost terrified by the appearance of Corxelius, for he seems 
to us like the ghost of one of those great artists of Raphael's time 
who has risen from the grave to paint more pictures — a dead creator, 
self-conjured by the indwelling word of life which was buried with 
him. If we study his pictures, they gaze on us as with eyes of the 
fifteenth century ; their garments are ghost-like as though they rustled 
past in midnight ; the bodies are strong with magic power, drawn 
with dream-like accuracy, powerfully true, only they want blood, 



— 299 — 

throbbing life and colour. Yes, Cornelius is a creator, but if we 
look at his creations it seems to us as though they could not live 
long — as though they were all painted a few hours before death — as 
though they all were prophetic signs of approaching dissolution. 
Despite their hearty geniality, the paintings of Rubens awaken in us 
a similar -feeling — they also seem to bear within them the germ of 
death, and a feeling comes over us that notwithstanding their super- 
abundance of life and their fulness of red blood, they must suddenly 
be struck down. This is perhaps the secret of that affinity which we 
so strangely feel when comparing these masters. The excess of 
pleasure in certain pictures by Rubens, and the infinite sorrow in 
others by Cornelius, awake in us perhaps the same emotions. But 
whence comes this sorrow in a Dutchman? It is perhaps the terri- 
ble consciousness that he belongs to an age long passed away, and 
that his life is a mystical reappearance — for oh ! he is not merely the 
only great artist who now paints, but, it may be, the only great one 
who ever will paint. Before him, to the time of the Caracci, is a 
long darkness, and after him. the shadows again close together ; his 
hand is a bright, solitary spirit-hand in the night of Art, and the 
pictures which it paints bear the unearthly confidence of such an 
earnest, rugged seclusion. I have never looked at this hand of the 
Last of the Painters, without a secret shudder when I gazed on the 
man himself, the little sharp man with glowing eyes ; and yet that 
hand has awakened in me feelings of the warmest piety when I have 
remembered that it once rested lovingly on my little fingers, and 
aided me to design outlines of faces, when I, a little boy, was learn- 
ing to draw in the academy in Dusseldorf. 



CHAPTER XXXIY. 



I cannot leave unmentioned the collection of portraits of beautiful 
Genoese women, exhibited in the Palace Durazzo. Nothing in the 
world inspires the soul with such melancholy as the sight of portraits 
of fair ladies who have been dead for centuries. Sadness steals over 
the soul when we reflect that, of all the originals of those pictures, 
of all the beauties who were so lovely, so coquettish, so witty, so 
roguish, and so dreamy — of all those May heads with April moods — 
of that spring-tide of ladies — nothing now remains but these many- 
coloured shadows, which some artist, who like them has long been 



— 300 — 

dead, lias painted on a perishable canvas, which, like the originals, 
must pass away, in time, to decay and dust. And so all life passes 
away — the beautiful as well as the hideous — without leaving a trace. 
Death, the dry pedant, spares the rose as little as the thistle ; he for- 
gets not a lonely straw in the most remote wilderness ; he thoroughly 
and incessantly destroys ; everywhere we behold him treading into 
dust plants and animals, mankind and their works, and even those 
Egyptian pyramids, which seem to defy his annihilating rage, are only 
trophies of his power, monuments of all long passed away, primeval 
royal graves. 

But sadder far than this idea of an endless dying, and of a desolate 
yawning annihilation, is the thought that we do not even perish as 
originals, but as copies of long-vanished mortals who were spiritually 
and bodily like us, and that, after us, men will again be born, who 
will in turn see, and feel, and think like us, and be again in turn 
annihilated by Death :— a comfortless, endless game of reproduction, 
wherein the prolific earth must constantly be bringing forth more 
than Death can destroy, so that she, in her need, must give more heed 
to the maintenance of the species than to the originality of the indi- 
vidual. 

Strangely was I thrilled by the mystical terror of this thought, 
when I, in the Durazzo palace, gazed upon the portraits of the lovely 
Genoese ladies, and, among them, on a picture which awoke in my 
soul a sweet storm, which even yet, when I recall it, causes my eye- 
lashes to tremble. — It was the picture of the dead Maria. 

The guardian of the gallery believed, indeed, that the picture was 
that of a Duchess of Genoa, and in the cicerone tone began to tell 
that " it was painted by Giorgio Barbarelli de Castelfranco nel 
Trevigiano, commonly known as Giorgione. He was one of the 
greatest painters of the Venetian school — was born in the year 1477, 
and died in the year 1511." 

" That will do, Signor Custode. The likeness is caught exactly, 
although it was painted a few centuries too early. Drawing accurate, 
style of colour excellent. — why, the folds of drapery on the breast are 
admirable. Be so kind as to take the picture down from the wall — 
I will only blow away the dust from the lips and brush away the spi- 
der which lurks in a corner of the frame.- — Maria was always so 
much afraid of spiders." 

" Excellenza appears to be a connoisseur." 

" If so, I did not know it, Signor Custode. I have the talent of 
being singularly moved when I behold certain pictures, and then my 






— 301 — 

eyes water. But what do I see ! Whose portrait is that of the man 
in the black cloak hanging yonder ?" 

" Also by Giorgione, — a master-piece." 

" Signor, I beg you be so kind as to take this picture, too, from the 
wall and hold it near the mirror, that I may see if I resemble it !" 

" Your Excellency is not so pale. The picture is a master-piece 
by Giorgione, the rival of Titian. He was born in 1477, and died in 
the year L511." 

Dear reader, I much prefer Giorgione to Titian, and am especially 
obliged to him for painting Maria for me. And it must also be evi- 
dent to you that Giorgione painted that other portrait for me, and 
not for some old Genoese. And it is very like — death-silent like ; 
it even has the sorrow in the glance — a sorrow which belongs rather 
to an imagined pain than to one which has been experienced — and 
one which is very hard to paint. The whole picture seems to have 
been sighed upon canvas. Even the man in the black mantle is well 
painted, and the maliciously sentimental lips are like life — speakingly 
so, as though they were just about to tell a story — the story of the 
knight who fain would kiss his ladye-love to life, and as the light was 
blown out 



— 302 — 
THE BATHS OF LUCCA. 



" I am as woman is to man" 

Count August vox Platen Hu.t.ermpnpe. 

'•' "Would the Count like a dance, 
Let him but say so, 
I'll play him a tune." 

Figap.o. 



CHAPTER I. 

Whex I sought Matilda in her chamber, she had just fastened 
the last button of her green riding-habit, and was putting on a 
chapeau with a white plume. She hastily cast it down, as soon as 
she saw me, and ran to me with all her waving, golden locks. 
"Doctor, heaven and earth!" she cried, and according to her old 
custom she caught me by the ears and kissed me with the drollest 
heartiness. 

" How are you, maddest of mortal men ! How glad I am to see 
you again ! For never in this world shall I find a crazier soul. 
There are fools and blockheads in plenty, and people often do them 
the honour to consider them crazy, but real insanity is as scarce as 
real wisdom — perhaps it is nothing but wisdom which is vexed to 
think that it knows everything — all the infamy of this would — and 
has consequently come to the wise conclusion to go mad. The Ori- 
entals are a shrewder race, they honour a maniac as a prophet, but 
we look upon prophets as maniacs." 

" But, my Lady, why have you not written to me ?" 

•'•' Surely, Doctor, I wrote you a long letter, and directed it to 
•New Bedlam.' But as you, contrary to all expectation, were not 
there, they sent it to St. Luke, and as you were not there either, it 
went to another establishment of the same sort, and so it went the 
rounds of all the lunatic asylums in England, Scotland and Ireland, 
until they returned it to me with the remark, that the gentleman to 
whom the letter was addressed was not as yet caught And how 
under the sun have you contrived to keep at liberty ?" 



— 303 — 

"Ah, I did it cunningly, my Lady. Wherever I went I contrived 
to slip away from the madhouses, and I think that I shall succeed in 
Italy too." 

" Oh, friend, here you are safe enough, for in the first place there 
is no madhouse in the neighbourhood, and, secondly, we are here in 
the majority." 

" We? My Lady! You count yourself then as one of us? Per- 
mit me to imprint the kiss of brotherhood upon your brow." 

"Ah! I mean we watering-place guests, among whom I am really 
the most rational. And so you can easily imagine who the maddest 
must be, I mean Julia Maxfield, who always maintains that green 
eyes signify the spring of the soul ; and besides we have two young 
beauties" — 

" English beauties, of course, my Lady"-?— 

" Doctor — what does this mocking tone mean ? The yellow, greasy 
maccaroni faces in Italy must suit your taste, if you have no fancy 
now for British" — 

" Plum-puddings with raisin-eyes, roast-beef bosoms festooned with 
white strips of horseradish, proud pies" — 

" There was a time, Doctor, when you were enchanted if a lovely 
English woman" — 

" Yes, but that was once ! I always have a proper reverence for 
your fellow-country-women — they are bright as suns — but suns of 
ice : they are white as marble, but are also marble cold — on their 
bosoms are frozen the poor" — 

" Oho ! — I know one who did not freeze there, but who jumped 
fresh and alive over the sea, and he was a great German imper- 
tinent" — 

" At least he got such a cold on that British frosty heart that he 
still has a cold in his head in consequence." 

My Lady seemed vexed at this answer, she grasped the riding- whip 
which lay between the leaves of a novel as a book-marker, switched 
it around the ears of her great white hound, who slowly growled, 
hastily clapped her hat jauntily on her locks, looked once or twice 
with approbation at herself in the mirror, and said proudly, " I am 
still beautiful !" But then, all at once, as if penetrated by a gloomy 
thrill of pain, she remained silent, musing, slowly drew the long- 
white riding-glove from her hand, held the hand out to me, and read- 
ing my thoughts like lightning, said : " This hand is not as beautiful 
as it was in Eamsgate — ha? Since that time Matilda has suffered 
— much !" 



— 304 — 

Dear reader, we can seldom see a flaw in a bell — we must hear its 
riug to know if it exists. Could you have heard the ring of the 
voice wherewith those words were spoken, you would have felt at 
once that my Lady's heart was a bell of the best metal, but that a 
secret flaw strangely mingled a discord with its sweetest tones, and 
gave it an air of strange sadness. Yet I love such bells, they ever 
find a true echo in my own breast, and I again kissed my Lady's 
hand, almost as earnestly as of old, though it was no longer in its 
first bloom, and the veins which rose from it, almost all too blue, 
seemed to repeat, " since that time Matilda has suffered — much." 

Her eyes gazed on me like sorrowful solitary stars in the autumnal 
heaven, and she said, softly and sadly, from her inmost soul : " You 
seem to love me less, now, Doctor ! For that was a tear of pity 
which you just wept on my hand. It seemed like an alms." 

" Who taught you to interpret so unkindly the silent language of 
my tears ? I'll bet that your white hound there who fawns on you, 
understands me better. He looks first at me and then at you, and 
seems to be wondering that human beings, those proud lords of cre- 
ation, are internally so wretched. Ah ! my Lady, only a sympa- 
thetic sorrow draws forth such tears — in reality we each weep for 
ourselves." 

" Enough, enough, Doctor. It is good at any rate that we are co- 
temporaries, and that we meet again with our foolish tears in the 
same corner of the earth. Oh our bad luck ! if you had only lived 
two centuries earlier, when I was getting on so well with my friend, 
Michael de Cervantes Saavedra, or rather if you had only been 
born a hundred years later, as another intimate friend of mine, whose 
name I don't just now happen to know, because his first birthday 
won't be celebrated until the year 1900. — But tell me how you've 
been getting on since we parted." 

" At the old business, my Lady — rolling the great stone. When 
I had shoved it to the top of the hill then it rolled all at once down 
again, and I had to go at it once more ; and this up and down hill 
work lasted until at last I lie crouched beneath it, and Master 
Steinmetz has carved on it with great letters : ' Here rests in the 
Lord' "— 

" By my soul, Doctor, I'll bring you to life again. Don't you dare 
to be melancholy ! Laugh, or" — 

" No — don't tickle me. I'd rather laugh of myself!" 

" That's right. Now you please me, just as you did in Ramsgate, 
where we first became so intimate" — 






— -305 — 

"And finally a little more than intimate. Yes- — I will be merry. 

It is fortunate that we have met, and the great German will 

again find his greatest pleasure in risking his life near you." 

My Lady's eyes laughed like sunshine after a soft rain, and her 
merry mood again flashed out as John entered, and with the stiffest 
flunkey pathos announced his Excellency, the Marquis Christophero 
di Gumpelino. 

" He's welcome ! And now, Doctor, you will become acquainted 
with a peer of the realm of fools. Don't be shocked at his personal 
appearance, particularly at his nose. The man has excellent quali- 
ties ; for instance, a great deal of money, common sense, and the de- 
sire to embody in himself all the follies of the age ; moreover, he is 
in love with my green-eyed friend, Julia Maxfield, and calls her his 
Julia and himself her Romeo, and declaims and sighs ; and Lord 
Maxfield, the brother-in-law to whom the faithful Julia has been 
entrusted by her husband, is an Argus"— 

I was just about to remark that Argus had charge of a cow, when 
the door opened, and, to my upmost amazement, in waddled my old 
friend, the Banker Christian Gumpel, with his opulent smile and 
blessed belly. After his broad shining lips had sufficiently scoured 
my Lady's hand, and delivered themselves of the usual questions as 

to health, &c, he recognised me and the friends sank into each 

other's arms. 



CHAPTER II. 



Matilda's warning not to be struck by Gumpelino's nose, had 
some foundation in fact, for he came within an ace of knocking out 
one of my eyes with it. I will say nothing against this nose ; on the 
contrary, it was one of the noblest form, and seemed of itself to give 
my friend full right to claim, at least, the title of a Marquis. For 
it was evident from the nose that Gumpel was of high nobility, and 
that he descended from that very ancient world-family into which the 
blessed Lord himself once married without fear of a mesalliance. 
Since those days, it is true that the family has come down a little, 
and, in fact, since the reign of Charlemagne they have been obliged 
to pick up a living by selling old pantaloons and lottery tickets, but 
without diminishing in the least their pride of ancestry, or losing the 
hope that some day they will ail come again into their long lost pro« 

26* 



— 306- — 

perty, or at least obtain emigration-damages, witli interest, when 
their old legitimate sovereign keeps the promises made when restored 
to office — promises by which he has been leading them about by the 
nose for two thousand years. Perhaps this leading them about by 
the nose is the cause why the latter has been pulled out to such a 
length ! Or it may be that these long noses are a sort of uniform 
whereby Jehovah recognises his old body guards even when they have 
deserted. Such a deserter was the M arquis Goipelino, but he always 
wore his uniform, and a brilliant one it was, sprinkled with crosses 
and stars of rubies, a red eagle order in miniature and other deco- 
rations. 

"Look !" said my Lady, " that is my favourite nose, and I know of 
no more beautiful flower in all the world." 

" This flower," grinned Gumpelino, " cannot be placed on your 
fair bosom, unless I lay my blooming face there also, and such an 
addition might trouble you in this warm weather. But, I bring 
you an equally precious flower, which is here very rare." 

Saying this the Marquis opened a tissue paper horn, which he had 
Drought with him, and with great care slowly extracted from it a 
magnificent tulip. 

Scarcely had my Lady seen the flower, ere she screamed with all 
her might. " Murder ! murder ! would you murder me ? Away with 
the horrible vision !" With this she acted as if about to be mur- 
dered, held her hands before her eyes, ran madly about the room, 
invoked maledictions on Gumpelino's nose and tulip, rang the bell, 
stamped on the ground, struck the hound with her riding switch til] 
he bayed aloud, and as John entered, she cried aloud, like Kean, in 
Richard III. — 

" A horse! a horse! 
My kingdom for a horse!" 

and stormed like a. whirlwind from the room. 

'* A queer woman!" said Gumpelino, motionless with astonishment 
and still holding the tulip in his hand, so that he looked like one of 
those lotus-bearing, fat idols carved on antique Indian temples. But 
I understood the Lady and her idiosyncracy far better than he, and 
opening the window, I cried : " My Lady, how you act ! Is this sense 
■ — propriety — especially is it love ?" 

Up laughed the wild answer : 

" When I am o' horseback, I will swear 
I love thee infinitely." 



307 



CHAPTER III. 



' A curious woman ." repeated Gumpelino, as we went our way to 
visit his two lady friends, Signora Letitia and Signora Francesca, 
whose acquaintance he promised me. As the dwelling of these 
ladies was situated on a somewhat distant eminence, I appreciated 
all the more this kindness of my corpulent friend, who found hill- 
climbing somewhat difficult, and who stopped on every little mound 
to recover his breath, and sigh, " Jesu !" 

The dwellings at the baths of Lucca are situated either below in a 
village surrounded by high hills, or are placed on one of these hills 
itself, not far from the principal spring, where a picturesque group 
of houses peeps down into the charming dale. But many are scat- 
tered here and there on the sides of the hill, and are attainable only 
by a wearisome climb through vines, myrtle bushes, honeysuckles, 
laurels, oleanders, geraniums and a wilderness of similar high-born 
plants. I have never seen a lovelier valley, particularly when one 
looks from the terrace of the upper bath, where the solemn green 
cypresses, stand down into the village. We there see a bridge bend- 
ing over a stream called the Lima, and which cuts the village in two. 
At its either end there are waterfalls leaping over rocky fragments 
with a roar, as though they would fain utter the pleasantest things 
but could not express themselves distinctly on account of the roar- 
ing echo. 

The great charm of the valley is owing to the circumstance that 
it is neither too great nor too small — that the soul of the beholder 
is not forcibly elevated, but rather calmly and' gradually inspired 
with the glorious view ; that the summits of* the mountains them- 
selves, true to their Appennine nature, are not magnificently mis- 
shapen in extravagant Gothic form, like rocky caricatures, just as 
the men in German lan'dd on them are human caricatures ; but so 
that their nobly rounded, cheerful green forms seem of themselves 
inspired with the civilization of art, and accord melodiously with the 
blue heaven. 

" Jesu !" sighed Gumpelino, as we, weary with climbing, and a 
little too well warmed with the morning sun, attained the above 
mentioned cypresses, and gazing down into the village, saw our 
English lady friend sweeping proudly along on her steed over the 
bridge, like the queen in a fairy legend, and then vanish, swift as a 



— 308 — 

dream. " Jesu ! what a curious woman ! In all my born clays 
I never did see such a woman. Only in plays — don't you think the 
actress Holzbecher could play her part wel". ? There's something 
of the water-witch about her — hey ?" 

" You're right, Gumpelino. When I went with her from London 
to Rotterdam, the captain compared her to a rose sprinkled with 
pepper. Out of gratitude for this spicy comparison, she emptied a 
whole box of pepper in his hair as he lay asleep in the cabin. Nobody 
could come near the man without sneezing." 

" A curious woman !" quoth Gumpelino once again. " Delicate 
as white silk but every bit as strong — and she rides horseback as 
well as I. I only hope she wont ride herself out of health. There 
— did you see that long lean Englishman on his lean horse, racing 
after her like a galloping consumption ? Those English people ride 
too outrageously — why, they'd spend all the money in the world on 
horses. Lady Maxfield's white horse cost three hundred golden 
live louis d'ors — ah ! — and louis d'ors are at such a premium now, and 
keep rising every day!" 

" Yes — the louis d'ors will end by rising so high, that a poor 
scholar like myself will never be able to reach them." 

" You can't have an idea, Doctor, of how much money I have to 
spend, and yet I keep only one attendant, and only when I am in 
Rome hire a chaplain for my private chapel. Look — there comes 
my Hyacinth !" 

The little figure who at this instant appeared, approaching us 
from behind the turn of a hill, reminded me more of a " burning 
bush" than a hyacinth. It appeared like a waddling great scarlet 
coat, overloaded with gold embroidery, which flashed in the sunrays, 
and above this red splendor sweated a little face well known to me of 
old, and which gaily nodded to me. And in fact when I saw the 
sallow cautious face and the busy winking e.yes, I recognized a coun- 
tenance which I should sooner have expected to see on Mount Sinai 
than on the Appenines- -and that was the* face of Herr Hirsch, 
citizen of Hamburg, a man who was not only a very honorable lottery 
agent, but one who was also learned in hard and soft corns and in 
jewels, inasmuch as he not only knew the difference between them, 
but had skill in curing the former, and in putting a good round price 
on the latter. 

" I do hope," he said, as he approached, " that you haven't forgot 
me, though my name ain't Hirsch now. I'm called Hyacinth, and 
I'm servant of Herr Gumpel." 



— 309 — 

" Hyacinth !" cried his master, in raging amazement at this indis- 
cretion of his servant. 

" Oh be easy, Herr Gumpel, or Herr Gumpelino, or Herr Marquis, 
or your Excellence ; we needn't put ourselves out of the way with 
this here gentleman. He knows me ; he's bought lots of lottery 
tickets of me ; by the way, I b'lieve he still owes me seven marks 
and nine schilling on the last drawing. I am really glad, Doctor, to 
meet you again. You're here, I s'pose on pleasure-business. What 
else, of course, can a man be doing here when it's so hot, a-climbing up 
and down hill ? I'm as used up every night as if I'd gone twenty times 
from the Altona Gate to the Stone Gate without earning a copper." 

" Jesu " — cried the Marquis — " hold your tongue ! I'll get an- 
other servant — I will." 

." Why hold my tongue ?" replied Hirsch Hyacinthus ; " I do so 
love to get a chance to talk good German with one whom I've known 
in Hamburg, and when I think of Hamburg" — 

Here at the memory of. his bit of a step-fatherland, his eyes 
gleamed with tears, and he said, sighing as he spoke : " What is Man ? 
He goes walking with pleasure out of the Hamburg Gate, and on 
the Hamburg Hill, and there he sees the sights, the lions, the birds, 
the poll-parrots,* the monkeys, the great folks, and he takes a turn 
on the flying-horses, or gets electrified, and then thinks how jolly 
he'd be if he was only in a place a thousand miles off, in Italy, where 
the oranges and lemons are a-growing ! What is Man ? When he's 
before the Altona Gate he wants to be in Italy, and when he's in 
Italy, he wants to be back again before the Altona Gate. Oh ! I 
wish I was a standing there now, looking at the Michael's steeple, 
and the big clock on it with the great gold figures — great gold figures 
■ — how often I've looked at 'em, when they were a-shining so jolly 
in the afternoon sun, till I felt like kissing 'em. Now I'm in Italy, 
where the lemons and oranges grow, and when I see 'em growing, it 
puts me in mind of the Steinweg in Hamburg, where -there's lots of 
'em lying in great heaping piles in the wheelbarrows, and where a 
man can eat and eat 'em to his heart's content, without all this trou- 
ble of going up hill and down, and getting so warm. As the Lord 
may have mercy on me, Herr Marquis, if it wasn't for the honor of 
the situation, and the genteel edecation I'm getting, cuss me if I'd 
a-come here But I will say this for you, Marquis, that in your 
service there's both honor and genteel bringing up to be had, a^d no 
mistake." 

* Papagoyim — the polly-theists. Goyim in Hebrew means Gentiles. 



— 310 — 

" Hyacinth !" said Gumpelino, who had been somewhat mollified 
by this flattery, " Hyacinth, go to" — 

" Yes, I know" — 

" I say you don't know, Hyacinth." 

"And I say, Herr Gumpel, I do know. No use a-teiling me. 
Your Excellency was a-going to say that I must go to Lady Max 
field. Sho ! I know all your thoughts before you've thought them, 
and some maybe that you never will think in all your born days. 
Such a servant as I am isn't to be found easy, and I only do it for 
the honor and the genteel edecation, and it's a fact, I do get both by 
you." With these words, he wiped his face with a very clean white 
handkerchief. 

" Hyacinth," said the Marquis, " go to Lady Julia Maxfield — to 
my Julia — and give her this tulip ; take good care of it, for it cost 
five paoli, and say to her" — 

" Yes, I know" — 

" You know nothing. Tell her that : the tulip is among the 
flowers" — 

" Yes, I know ; you want to say something to her with this here 
flower. I've made up such mottoes many a time for my lottery 
tickets." 

" I don't want any of your lottery ticket notions. Go to Ladj 
Maxfield, and say to her — 

" The tulip is among the flowers 
.- Like among cheeses good Strachino, 

But more than cheese and more than flowers, 
Thou'rt honored by thy Gumpelino." 

" Now, as I hope to be saved, that's first rate ;" cried Hyacinth. 
" Oh ! you needn't be a-nodding to me, Herr Marquis ; what you 
know, I know, and what I know, you know. And you, Doctor, good 
bye ! Never mind that little trifle you didn't settle with me." With 
these words he descended the mountain, and as he went I could hear 
him murmur, " Gumpelino, Stracliino — Strachino, Gumpelino." 

" He's an honest fellow," said the Marquis, " or I should have sent 
him off long ago, on account of his want of etiquette. However, 
before you it isn't of much consequence — you understand me. How 
do you like his livery? There's thirty dollars' worth of gold in his 
livery, more than there is on Rothschild's servants. It is my 
greatest delight to see how the man perfects himself. Now and then 
I give him lessons in refinement and accomplishment myself. I often 
say to him, " What is money ? Money is round and rolls away, but 



— 311 — 

culture remains." Yes, Doctor, if I — which the Lord forbid — should 
ever lose my money, I still have the comfort of knowing that I'm a 
great connoisseur in art — a connoisseur in painting, music and poetry. 
Yes, sir. Bind my eyes tight, and lead me all around in the gallery 
of Florence, and before every picture I'll tell you the name of the 
painter who painted it, or at least the school to which he belongs. 
Music — Stop up my ears, and I can hear every false note. Poetry — 
I know every actress in Germany, and have got the poets all by 
heart. Yes, sir, and Nature, too. I'm great on nature. I travelled 
once two hundred miles in Scotland— two hundred miles, just to see 
one single hill ! Italy surpasses everything. How do you like this 
landscape here ? What a creation ! Just look at the trees, the 
hills, the heaven, and the water, down yonder there — don't it all look 
as if it were painted ? Did you ever see anything of the kind finer, 
even in the theatre ? Why a man gets to be as you might say, a 
poet ; verses come into your head, and you don't know where they 
come from : 

" Silent, as the veil of twilight falls 
Rests the plain, the greenwood silent lies ; 
Save where near me, 'mid these mouldering walls 
The cricket's chirp in melancholy cries." 

These sublime verses were declaimed by the Marquis with thrilling 
pathos, while he gazed as if transfigured, down into the smiling val- 
ley which glowed with all the brightness of morning. 



CHAPTER IV. 



As I once one fine spring day, walked "under the lindens" in 
Berlin, there strolled before me two females, who were for a long 
time silent, until one of them langnishly exclaimed, "Ah, them green 
treeses !" To which the other, a young thing, answered, "Mother, 
what do you keer for them green treeses ?" 

I must observe, that the persons of whom I speak, though not 
clad in satin, still by no means belonged to the vulgar — who, by the 
way, are not to be found at all in Berlin, save in thejiighest circles. 
But as for that naive question, I can never forget it. Wherever I 
meet with affected admiration of nature, and similar verdant lies, it 
rises laughing in my soul. And during the declamation of the Mar- 



— 312 — 

quis, it rang out loud within me — and he, reading mockery on my 
lips, exclaimed as if vexed, " Don't disturb me now — you haven't any 
soul for pure simple nature — you are a morbid soul, so to speak — a 
Byron." 

Dear reader — do you perhaps belong to that flock of pious fowl 
who, for the last ten years, have been joining in that song of "By- 
ronic morbidness," with all manner of whistling and screaky piping, 
and which had its echo in the skull of poor Gumf-el? Ah dear 
reader, if you would complain of morbidness and want of harmony 
and division, then as well complain that the world itself is divided. 
For as the heart of the poet is the central point of the world, it 
must, in times like these be miserably divided and torn. He who 
boasts that his heart has remained whole, confesses that he has only 
a prosaic out-of-the-way corner-heart. But the great world-wound 
passed through my own heart, and on that account I know that the 
great Gods have highly blessed me above many others, and held me 
to be worthy of a poet-martyrdom. 

Once the world was whole and sound — in its early ages and in its 
middle ages, despite many wild battles, it had still an unity, and 
there were great whole poets. We may honour these poets and 
delight ourselves with them, but every imitation of their wholeness 
is a lie, — a lie which every sound eye penetrates, and which cannot 
escape scorn. Lately, with much trouble, I obtained in Berlin the 
writings of one of these ''perfect poets" who so bewailed my Byronic 
discordancy ; and by the affected verdancy, the delicate appreciation 
of nature, which breathed like fresh hay from his poems, my own 
poor heart, which has been so long discordant, well nigh burst with 
laughter, and unthinkingly I cried : " My dear Herr Intendant Coun- 
cillor William Neumann — what do you care for them green treeses ? 

"You are a morbid, discordant soul — a Byron," — quoth the Mar- 
quis, still gazing, as if enraptured down into the valley — clucking at 
times his tongue against his gums in sighing admiration, and say- 
ing — " Lord ! Lord ! — every thing just as if it were painted !" 

Poor Byron — such a calm enjoyment was denied to thee. Was 
thy heart so ruined that thou could'st only see, yes, and even des- 
cribe nature — but wert incapable of being blessed by her? Or 
was Bysshe Shelley in the right when he said that thou had'st, 
Actseon-like, surprised Nature in her chaste nakedness, and wert on 
that account torn by her hounds? 

Enough of all this — we are coming to pleasanter subjects, namely, 
to the dwelling of Sis;noras Letitia and Francesca — which itself 



: 



— 313 — 

seemed to be en negligee, and had in front two great round windows 
around which grape-vines curled, so that they looked like a profu- 
sion of beautiful green ringlets falling about its eyes. And at a dis- 
tance we heard ringing from within, warbling trills, guitar-tones, 
and merry laughter. 



CHAPTER V. 



Signora Letitia, a young rose of fifty summers, lay in bed, tril- 
ling and prattling with her two gallants, one of whom sat upon a 
low cricket, while the other leaning back in a great arm-chair played 
the guitar. From an adjoining room rang scraps of a sweet song, or 
of a far sweeter wondrously-toned laughter. With a certain cheap 
and easy irony, which he occasionally assumed, the marquis pre- 
sented me to the lady and to the two gentlemen, remarking, that I 
was the same John Henry Heine so celebrated in German legal 
literature. Unfortunately one of the gentlemen was a Professor in 
the University of Bologna, and a jurist at that, though his fat, 
round belly seemed rather to indicate that his forte was spherical 
trigonometry. Feeling as if I were rather in a scrape, I replied, that 
I did not write under my own name, but under that of Jarke — a 
statement made from pure modesty, as the name which came into 
my head was that of one of the most miserable insects among our 
legal writers. The Bolognese regretted from his soul that he never 
had heard this distinguished name — which will probably be your own 
case also, reader — but still entertained no doubt that its splendour 
would ere long irradiate the entire earth. With this he leaned back 
in the chair, touched a few chords on the guitar, and sang from 
"Axur:" 

"Oh powerful Brama! 
Ah let the weak stammer 
Of innocence please thee, 
Its stammer and clamor!" 

While a delicious mocking nightingale-echo warbled in the adjoining 
chamber the same air. Meanwhile Signora Letitia trilled in the 
most delicate soprano : 

" For thee alone these cheeks are glowing 
For thee alone these pulses beat, 
With Love's sweet impulse overflowing, 
This heart now throbs and all for thee." 

27 



— 314 — 

And with the commonest prose voice she added, " Bartolo, bring me 
the spittoon !" 

Then, from his lowly seat arose Bartolo, with his dry wooden legs, 
and presented, with all due honor, a spittoon of blue porcelain. 

This second gallant, as Gumpelino said to me aside in German, was 
a far-famed poet, whose songs, though written twenty years ago, still 
ring through Italy, and intoxicate with their wild glow of love both 
old and young ; while he himself is but a poor elderly man, with 
dimmed eyes in a pale face, scanty white hair on his trembling head, 
and cold poverty in his care-worn heart. Such a poor old poet, with 
his bald dryness, resembles a vine which we see standing leafless in 
winter on the bleak hill-side, trembling in the wind and covered with 
snow, while the sweet juice which once ran from it, warms, in far dis- 
tant lands, the heart of many a boon-companion, and inspires songs in 
its praise. Who knows but that when that wine-press of thought, the 
printing-press, has squeezed me dry, and the ancient tapped spirit is only 
to be found in the bookseller's vaults of Hoffmann and Campe, I, too, 
may sit, as thin and care-worn as old Bartolo, on a cricket near the 
bed of some old inamorata, and hand her, when called on — a spit- 
toon. 

Signora Letitia made excuses for lying a-bed, and indeed on her 
stomach at that, as an affliction resulting from a too free indulgence 
in figs prevented her from lying on her back, as a respectable lady 
should. She lay, in fact, in pretty much the attitude of a Sphynx, 
her high friseed head supported on both arms, while between them 
her breasts billowed and moved like a red sea. 

" You are a German ?" she inquired. 

" I am too honorable to deny it, Signora," replied my Little- 
ness. 

"Ah, the Germans are honorable enough !" she sighed, " but what 
does it avail that the Germans who rob us are honorable! — they are 
ruining Italy. My best friends are imprisoned in Milan; and only 
slavery " 

" No, no !" cried the Marquis, " do not complain of the Germans ; 
we are conquered conquerors, vanquished victors, so soon as we come 
to Italy. To see you, Signora, and to fall at your feet, are one and 
the same." And with this he spread his great yellow silk pocket- 
handkerchief on the floor, and kneeling on it, exclaimed, "Here I 
kneel and honor you in the name of all Germany." 

" Christophoro di Gumpelino !" sighed the Signora, deeply moved, 
" arise and embrace me !" 






— 315 — 

But lest the beloved shepherd might disturb her curling locks and 
the rouge of her cheeks, she did not kiss him on the glowing lips, but 
on his noble brow, so that his face reached lower down, and its rud- 
der, the nose, steered about in the red sea below. 

" Signor Baetolo," I cried, " permit me also to officiate with the 
spittoon !" 

Sorrowfully smiled Signor Bartolo, but never a word spake he, 
though said to be, next to Mezzofanti, the best teacher of languages 
in Bologna. We never converse willingly when talking is our pro- 
fession. He served the Signora as a silent knight — only, from time 
to time, he was called on to recite the poem which he, twenty-five 
years before, had thrown on the stage when she first in Bologna made 
her debut in Ariadne, It may be that, in those days, he himself was 
m full leaf and glowing enough — perhaps as much so as the holy 
Dionysios himself — while beyond doubt his Letitia-Ariadne leapt 
wildly, like a Bacchante, into his passionate arms — Evoe Bacche ! 
In those days he wrote many poems, still living in Italian literature, 
while the poet himself, and the beloved one, have long been mere 
waste paper. 

For five and twenty years his devotion has endured, and I think 
that even until he dies he will sit on the cricket and recite his poem, 
or serve his lady as commanded. The professor of law has been 
entwined as long as the other in the love-chains of the Signora ; he 
courts her still with as much ardor as at the beginning of the cen- 
tury, and must still pitilessly shorten his legal lectures when she 
requires his escort to any place, and he is still burdened with all the 
servitude of a genuine patito. 

The constancy of these two adorers of a long ruined beauty may 
be perhaps mere habit, perhaps a regard for an earlier feeling, and 
perhaps the feeling itself, which is now entirely independent of the 
present condition of its former object, and which now regards it with 
the eyes of memory. Thus in Catholic cities we often see, at some 
street corner, old people kneeling before an image of the Madonna, 
which is so faded that but few traces of it are visible — yes, it may be 
that it is entirely obliterated, nothing remaining but the niche wherein 
it was painted, and the lamp hanging over it ; but the old people who 
so piously kneel there have done so since youth — habit sends them 
thither daily at the same hour — they have not noted the gradual dis- 
appearance of the picture, and at last they become so dim of sight 
with age that it makes no difference whether the object of adoration 
is visible or not. Those who believe without seeing are, at any rate, 



— 316 — 

happier than the sharp sighted, who at once perceive every little 
irregularity in the face of their Madonna. There is nothing so terri- 
ble as such observations ! Once, I admit, I believed that infidelity 
in woman was the most dreadful of all possible things, and to give 
them the most dreadful name, once and for all, I called them serpents. 
But now, alas ! the most terrible thing to me is that they are not 
altogether serpents, for then they would come out every year with a 
fresh skin, revived and rejuvenated ! 

Whether either of the ancient Celadons felt a thrill of- envy that 
the Marquis — or, rather, his nose — swam in a sea of delight in the 
manner above described, is more than I know. Bartolo sat calmly 
on his low seat, his stick legs crossed, and played with the Signora's 
lap-dog, one of those pretty creatures peculiar to Bologna, and known 
among us by the familiar term of " Bolognas." The professor was 
not in the least put out in his song, which was occasionally inter- 
rupted by tittering sweet tones in the next room, which drowned it in 
a merry parody, and which he himself at times discontinued in order 
to illuminate me with legal questions. When we did agree in our 
opinions, he swept a few impatient chords and jingled quotations in 
proof. I, however, supported my views on those of my teacher's, the 
illustrious Hugo, wh# is greatly celebrated in Bologna under the 
name of Ugone, and also of Ugolino. 

" A great man !" cried the professor, and sang : 

" The gentle summons of his voice 

Still sounds so deeply in thy breast, 
Its very pain makes thee rejoice, 
And rapture briDgs thee heavenly rest." 

Thibaut, whom the Italians call Tibaldo, is also much honored in 
Italy, though his writings are not so much known there as his prin- 
cipal opinions and their objections. I found that only the names of 
Gans and Savigny were familiar to the professor, who was under the 
impression that the latter was a learned lady. 

" Ah, indeed !" he remarked, as I corrected this very pardonable 
error ; " really no lady ! I have been erroneously informed. Why, 
I was even told that once, at a ball, Signor Gans invited this 
lady to dance, but met with a refusal* — and that from this originated 
a literary enmity." 

" You have really been misinformed. Signor Gans does not 
dance, and for the philanthropic reason, that he might cause an 

* RefUs. 



— 317 — 

earthquake should he do so. The invitation to dance, of which you 
speak, is probably an allegory misunderstood. The historical and 
philosophical schools are regarded as dancers, and thus we may 
readily imagine a quadrille between Ugone, Tibaldo, G-ans and Sa- 
vigny. And in this sense Signor Ugone, though he be the diable 
boiteux of Jurisprudence, still dances as daintily as Lemiere, while 
Signor G-ans has recently made some jumps which entitle him to be 
regarded as the Hoguet of the philosophical school." 

"Signor Gans, then" — amended the Professor — "dances only 
allegorically, so to say, metaphorically." — Then suddenly, without 
saying more, he again swept the strings of his guitar, and amid the 
maddest playing sang : 

It is true, his well-loved name 

Is the joy of every bosom, 

Though the ocean waves be storming, 

And the clouds o'er Heaven be swarming, 

Still we hear Tarar loud calling, 

As though heaven and earth were bowing 

To the mighty hero's name. 

As for Herr Gceschen, the Professor did not so much as know 
that he existed. But this was, however, natural enough, for the 
name of the great Goschen has not yet got»so far as Bologna, but 
only to Poggio, which is four German miles distant, and where it 
will for amusement remain awhile. Gottingen itself is by no means 
so well known in Bologna as it ought to be, merely on the common 
principles of gratitude, since it calls itself the German Bologna. I 
will not inquire whether this name be appropriate or not — suffice it 
to say, that the two Universities are really distinguishable by the 
simple fact, that in Bologna they have the smallest dogs and the 
greatest scholars, while in Gottingen, on the contrary, are the 
smallest scholars and the greatest dogs. 



CHAPTER VI. 



As the Marquis Christophoro di Gumpelino drew his nose from 
the red sea, wherein it had been wallowing like a very Pharaoh, 
his countenance gleamed with selfish delight. Deeply moved, he 
promised the Signora that so soon as she should again be in a con- 
dition to sit down, he would bring her in his coach to Bologna, 



— 318 — 

It was at once arranged that the Professor should ride on before, 
but that Baktolo should sit within on the box, and hold the 
Signora's lap-dog, and that they all would go in a fortnight to 
Florence, where Signora Feancesca. who intended travelling during 
the same time with my Lady to Pisa, would finally meet us. While 
the Marquis counted up the cost of all this on his fingers, he 
hummed di tanti palpiti, Signora sang the clearest toned trills, 
and the Professor stormed away on his guitar, caroling such burn- 
ing werds, that the sweat ran down from his brow and mingled with 
the tears from his eyes, formed a perfect torrent. While all this 
ringing and singing went merrily on, the door of the adjoining cham- 
ber was suddenly opened and in sprang a being — 

I adjure you, ye Muses of the Old and New World, and ye also, 
oh undiscovered Muses who are as yet to be honoured by later races 
— sprites of whom I have dreamed in the gay green-wood and by the 
sounding sea — that ye give me colours wherewith to paint that being 
which next to virtue is the most glorious of' this world. Virtue — 
of course — is the first among glories, and the Creator adorned her 
with so many charms, that it would really seem that he could produce 
naught beside to be compared to her. Yet in a happy hour he once 
again concentrated all his energies and made Signora Francesca, the 
fair danseuse, that great master-piece, who was born after the crea- 
tion of Virtue, and in whom he did not in a single particular repeat 
himself as earthly artists are wont to do. — No, Signora Francesca is 
perfectly original — she hath not the least resemblance to Virtue, 
and there are critics and connoisseurs who even prefer her to the 
latter, to whom they award only the precedence due to superior 
antiquity. But is that much of a defect when a danseuse is only 
some six thousand years too young ? 

Ah, methinks I see her again as she sprung from the opened door 
to the midst of the room, and after an incredible pirouette, cast her- 
self at full length on the sofa, hiding both eyes with her hands, and 
crying, " Ah, I am so tired with sleeping !" The Marquis now ap- 
proached and entered into a long address, in which his ironical, 
broadly respectful manner, enigmatically contrasted with his sudden 
pauses, when moved by common sense business recollections, and his 
fluency when sentimentally inspired. Still this style was not un- 
natural; it was probably formed in him by his inability, through 
want of courage, to set forth successfully that supreme influence to 
which he believed himself to be entitled by his money and intelli- , 
gence — and he therefore sought, coward-like, to conceal it in language 



— 319 — 

of exaggerated humility. His broad laughter on such occasions was 
disagreeably delightful, as it inspired a doubt whether it was a matter 
of duty to reward him with kindness— or a kicking. In this wise he 
delivered his morning service to Signora Francesca, who, half asleep, 
hardly listened to him. Finally he begged permission to kiss at 
least her left foot, and as he, preparing for the job, spread his yellow 
handkerchief again on the floor, she held it indifferently out to him. 
It was enveloped in an exquisitely neat red slipper, in contrast to 
that on the right, which was blue — a droll coquetry by which the 
dainty littleness of both became more apparent. As the Marquis 
with deep reverence kissed the small foot, he arose with a sighing, 
" Oh, Jesu !" and begged permission to present me, which was 
also accorded in a gaping, sleepy manner, when my introducer 
delivered another oration, filled with praises of my excellence, not 
omitting the declaration, on his word of honour, that I had sung 
with great ability of unhappy love. 

I also begged of the lady to be allowed to kiss her left foot, and 
at the instant in which I enjoyed my share of this honour, she 
awoke, as if from a dim dream, bent smilingly down to me, gazed on 
me with great wondering eyes, leaped joyfully up to the centre of the 
room, and pirouetted times without number on one foot. I felt 
strangely that my heart in my bosom spun around also, until it was 
well nigh dizzy. Then the Professor merrily played on his guitar 
and sang, 

An Opera Signora 

Once loved and married me, 
A step I soon regretted, 

And wished that I were free. 

I sold her soon to pirates, 

They carried her afar, 
E're she could look around her; 

Hey ! bravo ! Biscroma. 

Once more Signora Francesca measured me from head to foot with 
a sharp glance, and then, as if fully contented, thanked the Marquis, 
somewhat as if I were a present which he had been kind enough to 
make her. She found little to object to in me, - save that my hair was 
of too light a brown ; she could have wished that it were darker, like 
that of the Abbate Cecco — and my eyes were also too small, and 
rather green than blue. In revenge, dear reader, I in turn should 
also describe Signora Francesca as depreciatingly ; but I have 
really no shadow of a defect to point out in her lovely form, whose 
perfection was that of the Graces, and yet which was almost frivolous 



— 320 — 

in its lightness. The countenance was entirely divine, such as we sea 
in Grecian statues ; the brow and nose forming an almost accurate 
straight line, while the lower line of the nose formed a sweet right 
angle which was wondrously short. As close, too, was the distance 
from the nose to the mouth, whose lips at either end seemed scarcely 
long enough, and which were extended by a soft dreamy smile, while 
beneath them arched a dear round chin, and the neck ! — ah, my 
pious reader, I am getting along too far and too fast — and, more- 
over, I have no right in this inaugural description, to speak of the 
two silent flowers which gleamed forth like white poetry when the 
iSignora loosened the silver neck-button of her black silk dress. 
Dear reader ! let us rather climb up again to a portrayal of the face, 
of which I have yet to remark that it was clear and gold-yellow, like 
amber — that the black hair which framed its temples in a bright 
oval, gave it a childlike turn, and that it was lighted up by two black 
abrupt eyes, as if with a magic light. 

You see, dear reader, that I would willingly give you an accurate 
local description of my good fortune, and as other travellers are ac- 
customed to give maps of the remarkable regions into which they 
have penetrated, so would I gladly serve up Francesca on a plate 
— of copper. But ah ! what avails the dead copy of mere outline in 
forms whose divinest charm consists of living movement. Even the 
best painter cannot bring this before our eyes, for painting is but a 
flat lie. Of the two, a sculptor would be more successful, for, by a 
changing illumination, we can to a certain degree realize motion in 
forms, and the torches which light them from without, appear to 
inspire a real life within. Yes, there is a statue, dear reader, which 
may give you some faint idea of Feancesca's loveliness, and that is 
the Venus of the great Canova which stands in the last hall of the 
Palazzo Pitti at Florence. I often think of this statue : at times 
in dreams it slumbers in my arms, until little by little it awakens to 
warm life, and whispers with the accents of Feancesca ! But it 
was the tone of this voice which gave to every word the gentlest and 
most infinite significance, and should I attempt to give her phrases, 
it would be only a dry herbarium of flowers, whose real charm 
was in their perfume. She often leaped up, dancing as she spoke, 
and it is possible that dancing was her most natural language. 
And my heart danced ever with her, executing the most difficult pas 
and exhibiting a capacity for Terpsichorean accomplishments which 
I had never suspected. 

In this language Feancesca narrated the history of the Abbate 



— 321 — 

Cecco, a young blade who had loved her while she was still plaiting 
straw hats in the valley of the Arno — assuring me that I was so fortu- 
nate as to resemble him. During this description she indulged in the 
most delicate pantomime, pressing one over the other the points of her 
fingers on her heart, then seemed with cup-like hand to be scooping 
out the tenderest emotions, cast herself finally with upheaving breasts 
on the sofa, hid her face in the cushions, raised her feet high, in the air 
and played with them as if they were puppets in a show. The blue 
foot represented the Abbate Cecco and the red his poor Francesca; 
and while she parodied her own story, she made the two loving feet 
part from each other, and it was touchingly ludicrous to see them 
kiss with their tips, saying the tenderest things — and the wild girl 
wept withal delightful tittering tears, which however came at times 
unconsciously from the soul with more depth than the part required. 
In her pride of pain she delivered for Cecco a long speech, in which 
he praised with pedantic metaphors the beauty of poor Francesca ; 
and the manner in which she replied in person, copying her own 
earlier sentimentalism, had in it something puppet-like and mourn- 
ful, which strangely moved my heart. " Adieu, Cecco !" " Adieu, 
Francesca !" was the endless refrain — and I was finally rejoiced 
when a pitiless destiny parted them far asunder — for a sweet fore- 
boding whispered in my soul that it would be an unfortunate thing 
for me should the two lovers remain continually united ! 

The Professor applauded with droll, shrill guitar tones, Signora 
trilled, the lap-dog barked, the Marquis and I clapped our hands as 
if mad, and Signora Francesca arose and gracefully courtesied her 
thanks. " It is really a pretty comedy,'' said she, " but it is now a 
long time since it was first brought out, and I am now so old — guess 
how old ?" 

But without waiting for my answer, she sprang up and cried : 
"Eighteen years!" — and spun round eighteen times on one foot. 
" And, Doctor, how old are you ?" 

" I, Signora, was born on the new year's night of the year eighteen 
hundred." 

" I always said," quoth the Marquis, "that he was one of the first 
men of our century." 

" And how old should you suppose I am ?" suddenly cried Signora 
Letitia. And without thinking of her mother Eve dress, which had 
been hitherto concealed by the bed-clothes, she leaped up so wildly, 
and manifested such agility, that not only the Eed Sea, but also all 
Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia were fully visible. 



— 322 — 

Terrified at this awful spectacle, I sprang back in horror, but con- 
trived to stammer out a few phrases as to the difficulty of answering 
such a question, "having as yet only half seen Signora," but as she 
pressed me all the more zealously for an answer, I confessed that in 
truth I had not as yet learned the proportion of the years in Italy 
to those of Germany. 

'•' Is the difference great ?" inquired Signora Letitia. 

" Of course," replied I, "for since heat expands all bodies, it fol- 
lows that the years in your warm Italy must be longer than those of 
our cold Germany." 

The Marquis extricated me better from this embarrassment by 
gallantly asserting, that her beauty had now first began to manifest 
itself in all its luxuriant maturity. "And, Signora," he added, "as 
the pomegranate, the older it is, the yellower it becomes, so will your 
beauty too become riper with age." 

The lady seemed to be gratified with this comparison, and con- 
fessed that she really did feel much riper now than of old, when she 
was but a thin, little thing, and had made her debut in Bologna — 
and that in fact, she could not comprehend how it was that with 
such a figure she could ever have made such a furore. And then 
she narrated all the particulars of this first appearance as Ariadne — 
a subject to which, as I subsequently ascertained, she frequently 
recurred, on which occasions Signor Bartolo was obliged to recite 
the poem which he had thrown upon the stage. It was a good 
poem, full of touching melancholy at the infidelity of Theseus, and 
of wild inspiration for Bacchus, and the glowing apotheosis of Ari- 
adne. "Bella cosa!" cried Signora Letitia at every verse; and I 
also praised the metaphors, the construction of the verse, and the 
entire treatment of the myth. 

"Yes, it is very beautiful," said the Professor, "and has beyond 
doubt a foundation in historical fact, for several writers distinctly 
state that Oneus, a priest of Bacchus married the mourning Ariadne 
when he found her abandoned on Naxos ; and, as often happens in 
the legend, the priest of the God has been taken for the God 
himself." 

I could b£ no means agree with him in this opinion, since in my- 
thology I rather incline to historical interpretation, and consequently 
asserted, " I can see nothing in the whole fable that Ariadne, after 
being left by Theseus in the island of Naxos, submitted her person 
to the embraces of Bacchus, but an allegorical statement that she 
V)ok to drinking — an hypothesis maintained by many learned men in 



— 323 — 

my father-land. " You, Signor Marquis, are probably aware, that 
in accordance with this hypothesis, the late Banker Bethmann has 
so contrived to illuminate his Ariadne, that she. appears to have a 
red nose."* 

" Yes, yes, Bethmann, in Frankfort, was a great man !" cried the 
Marquis. But, at the same instant, some deep reflection seemed to 
flit across his brain, and with a sigh he said, " Lord ! Lord ! — I have 
forgotten to write to Rothschild in Frankfort !" And, with a serious 
business face, from which all parodising mockery seemed to have 
vanished, he departed somewhat abruptly, promising to return 
towards evening. 

When he had left, and I was about — as is usual in this world — to 
pass my comments on the man to whose kindness I was indebted for 
the most agreeable of introductions, I found, to my astonishment, 
that the whole party could not praise him sufficiently, and that, above 
all, his enthusiasm for the beautiful, his noble and refined deport- 
ment, and his utter want of selfishness, inspired in them the most 
exaggerated expressions of admiration. Even Signora Francesca 
joined in this hymn of praise, but naively confessed that his nose 
was rather alarming, and that its enormous size reminded her of the 
tower of Pisa. 

When taking leave, I begged as a favour to be allowed to kiss her 
left foot once more, when she with smiling seriousness drew off not 
only the red shoe but her stocking also : and, as I knelt, held up to 
me the white, fresh, blooming, lily foot, which I pressed to my lips, 
more believingly, perhaps, than I would have done that of the Pope. 
Of course, I then performed the duties of ladies' maid, aiding her to 
draw on the stocking and shoe. 

" I am contented with you," said Signora Francesca, after the 
pedal toilette was over, and in accomplishing my share of which I 
had been by no means in a hurry, though all my ten fingers had been 
very busily engaged — " I am contented ; and you shall often have an 
opportunity of pulling on my stockings. To-day you have kissed my 

* " Danneker'8 statue of Ariadne, in the garden of Mr. Bethmann, near the Friedburg 
Gate, is the pride and boast of Frankfort, and deserves to be ranked among the most 
distinguished productions of modern art." By drawing a crimson curtain over tht. 
■window -which illuminates the room in -which the statue is placed, a rosy hue is commu- 
nicated not only to the nose of the lady, but to her entire person. I have heard it 
disputed whether the color thus given most resembles that of healthy flesh or of a 
nettle-rash — a point settled by ascertaining that those who differed in opinion had seen 
the statue at different periods of time, When the curtain is new, Ariadne certainly 
appears rather ultra-incarnadine, but as it fades she gradually lapses into a paler, 
healthier hue . — [Note by Translator.] 



— 32i — 

left foot, to-morrow the right shall be at your disposal. The next 
day you may kiss my left hand, and the day after the right. If you 
do your duty well, by and by you will get to my mouth. &c. &c. &c. 
You see that I'm inclined to help you along, and as you are still 
quite young, you may yet get along very well in the world." 

I did, indeed, advance far into the world of which she spoke ! Be 
my witnesses, ye Tuscan nights, thou clear blue heaven with great 
silver stars, ye wild laurels and secret myrtles, and ye, too, nymphs 
of the Apennines, who swept around us in a bridal dance, and 
dreamed yourselves once more in those better days of the immortals, 
when there were no Gothic lies, which permit only blind, groping 
pleasures in secret, and hasten to stick before every free feeling their 
hypocritical fig-leaf. 

There was, however, in this case, no occasion for any particular 
fig-leaves, since a whole fig-tree, with broad spreading branches, 
rustled over the heads of the happy pair ! 



CHAPTER VII. 



Every oxe knows what whippings are, but no one has as yet made 
out what love is. Some natural philosophers have asserted that it 
is a sort of electricity, which is not impossible, for in certain raptu- 
rous periods of love, we feel as though an electric flash from the eyes 
of the loved one had penetrated our heart. Ah ! such lightnings are 
the most destructive of all ; and I will honour above Feaxklin, the 
man who will invent a conductor which will protect us against them. 
If there were only little conductors running to the heart, to which 
lightning-rods were attached, which could divert the dreadful fire to 
some other quarter ! But I fear that it is not so easy a matter to 
rob Cupid of his arrows, as Jupiter of his lightning and tyrants of 
their sceptres. Besides, every love does not work in the lightning 
style ; many a time it is hidden like a snake amid roses, and looks 
for the first crevice in the heart wherein to nestle — often it is only a 
word, a glance, the light narration of some illicit deed, which falls 
like a seed into the heart, lies there through the long winter time 
until Spring comes, when the little grain shoots up into a flaming 
flower, whose perfume benumbs the brain. The same sun which 
hatches forth crocodile's eggs in Egypt, may at the same time fully 
ripen the love-seed in a young heart in Potsdam — for in Potsdam, 



— 325 — 

as in Egypt, there are tears. Has no one penetrated their being ? 
has no one solved the riddle ? Perhaps such a solution would cause 
greater pain than the riddle itself, and the heart would be by it 
stricken with horror, and petrified as at the sight of the Medusa. 
Serpents twine around the awful word which reveals this mystery. 
Oh ! I will never know that word of solution, for the burning misery 
in my own heart is dearer to me than cold, marble-like death. Oh ! 
utter it not, ye forms of the dead, which, painless as stone, but as 
feelingless, wander through the rose gardens of this world, and smile 
with pale lips on the foolish soul who praises the perfume of the 
roses, and bewails their thorns. 

But if I, dear reader, cannot tell thee what love really is, I can 
at least describe with the utmost accuracy how a man behaves, 
and how he feels, when he is enamoured among the Apennines. For 
he then behaves like a fool ; he dances on rocks and hills, believing 
that the whole world dances with him. He feels as if the earth had 
just been finished on that very day, and that he was the first man 
made. "Ah! how beautiful everything is!" I carolled, as I left 
Fkancesca's dwelling. " How fair and precious is this new world !" 
I felt as though I must give to all plants and animals a new name, 
and I called every one according to its inner nature and my own 
feelings, which blended so marvellously with all things without. My 
breast was a well-spring of revelation, and I understood all forms 
and figures, the perfume of plants, the song of birds, the piping of 
the wind, and the rustling of waterfalls. Often, too, I seemed to 
hear the divine voice, "Adam, where art thou ?" " Here am I, Fran- 
cesca !" I replied. "I pray to thee, for well I know that thou hast 
created sun, moon, and stars, and the earth with all its creatures !" 
Then there was soft laughter among the myrtles, and I secretly 
sighed within myself, "Oh, delicious folly, do not forsake me !" 

But it was when twilight stole over me that the delirious happi- 
ness of love first truly began. The trees, danced on the rocks, 
while their heavy heads were ruddily flushed over by the setting 
sun as though intoxicated from their own embracing vines. Be- 
low them the brook darted more hurriedly along and murmured 
anxiously as though fearing to undermine and overthrow the en- 
raptured quivering trees. And over all flashed the summer eye 
light rising as deliriously as light kisses. "Yes," I cried, "the 
laughing Heaven kisses laughing Earth — oh Francesca! lovely 
Heaven, let me be thy Earth? I am all so earthly, and sigh for 
thee my Heaven !" So I cried, holding my hands in wild prayer up 

28 



— 326 — 

to Heaven, and ran and struck my head against many a tree, which 
instead of scolding I embraced, and my whole soul cried out with 
joy in all the intoxication of love, — when I suddenly beheld a gleam- 
ing, scarlet form, which at once tore me violently from my dreams 
and brought me back to a sense of the coldest reality. 



CHAPTER Till. 



On a mossy bank, beneath a wide branching laurel, sat Hyacin- 
thos, the Marquis's servant; and near him his dog Apollo. The 
latter, however, might rather be said to be standing, as he had both 
fore-paws on the scarlet knee of the little man, and inquisitively 
beheld how the latter, holding a tablet in his hand, wrote from time to 
time therein. At times, whilst thus employed, Hyacjnthos smiled 
sorrowfully, then shook his head, and then handkerchiefed his face 
with an air of satisfaction. 

" What the devil !" I cried, " Hiesch Hyacinth ! are you compos- 
ing poetry? Well the symptoms are favourable. Apollo is by your 
side and the laurel hangs over your head." 

But I did the poor sinner injustice. He amiably answered, 
"Poems! no; I'm a lover of poems, but don't write 'em. What 
should I write? I hadn't any thing to do just then, and so just for 
fun I was writing off a list of the names of those gentlemen who've 
played in my lottery — some of them are a little in debt to me yet — 
oh don't suppose, Doctor, I meant to hint any thing !— plenty of time 
for that. I know that you're good. If you'd only taken ticket 
number 1365 last time instead of 1364, you'd have been worth a 
hundred thousand marks banco now, and needn't have been running 
around here, and might be sitting cosy and easy in Hamburg, telling 
folks, as you laid off on the sofa, how things looked in Italy. As true 
as the Lord may help me, I wouldn't have come here if it hadn't 
been for Herr Gujtpel ! Oh what heat and danger and getting tired 
I have to stand, and wherever there's any thing out of the way or 
crazy, there's Herr Gumpel — and I must take my share in it. I'd 
have gone away long, long ago if I thought he could do without me. 
For if I didn't who could certify for him at home how much honour 
and cultivation he'd enjoyed when travelling? And to tell the truth, 
Doctor, I begin to set great store myself on cultivation and manners. 
In Hamburg, the Lord be praised ! I don't need it, but a man never 






— 327 — 

knows what he may want when he goes any where else. And folks 
are right, for a little accomplishment ornaments the whole man. 
And how much honour you get by it too ! For instance, how Lady 
Maxfield received me this morning, and how handsome she ' came 
down.' Just on a level with me. And she gave me the francesconi 
to drink her health, though the flower only cost five paoli. Besides 
— oh isn't it a pleasure to hold the little, white naked loot of a pretty 
lady in your hand ?" 

I was startled by this last remark, and at once thought, " Is he 
making fun of raef But how could the vagabond know of the good 
fortune which I had encountered at the same hour, .when he was on 
the other side of the hill ? Was there perhaps a similar scene, and 
was there perhaps displayed in it, the irony of the great world-stage- 
poet, who has acted at the same instant a thousand similar scenes, 
each parodying the other for the amusement of the heavenly host? 
But my suspicions were unfounded, for after many and oft-repeated 
questions, ending with my solemn promise not to tell the Marquis, 
the poor fellow admitted that when he gave the flower to Lady 
Maxfield she was still abed — and that just at the instant in which 
he was about to deliver it — and with it a fine speech — one of her 
pretty naked feet was thrust out from beneath the counterpane. 
Observing a corn on it he at once begged permission to extract the 
annoyance — which was readily granted, and for which, with the tulip 
he was rewarded with a francesconi. 

" Yet I only did it for the honour of the thing," added Hyacinth, 
"and that's just what I said to Baron Rothschild when I had the 
honour to cut his corns. It took place in his cabinet ; he sat there 
on his green arm-chair like a king, with his courtiers standing 
around, and he all the while was a-sending expresses to all the 
kings. And while I was cutting his corns I thought in my heart, 
' Now you've got in your hands the foot of the man who holds all 
the world in his hands, and you too are a man that's somebody, for 
if you cut too deep he'll be angry, and if you don't cut enough he'll 
be all the madder at the kings,' — it was the happiest moment of my 
life !" 

" I can readily imagine your feelings, Herr Hyacinth. But whom 
among the Rothschild dynasty did you thus amputate ? Was it 
the high-hearted Briton, the man in Lombard street, who has set up 
a pawn-broker's shop for emperors and kings?" 

" Of course, Doctor, I mean the great Rothschild, the great 
Nathan Rothschild, to whom the Emperor of Brazil pawned his dia- 



— 328 — 

mond crown. But I had the honour too, to make the acquaintance 
of Baron Solomon Rothschild iD Frankfort, and though I wasn't 
on exactly the same footing with him as the other, he still knew 
how to esteem me. "When the Marquis said to him, that I had once 
been a lottery agent, the Baron answered very wittily, ' I'm head- 
agent of the Rothschild lottery myself, and a colleague of mine 
mustn't eat among servants — he must sit along-side of me at the 
table.' And as true as God be good to me, Doctor, I sat by Solo- 
mon Rothschild, and he treated me just like one of his equals — 
quite famillionaire. I was with him too at the Children's Ball, 
which was in the newspapers. I shall never see such a grand show 
again in all my born days. I was once in Hamburg at a ball which 
cost fifteen hundred marks and eight schillings — but that was nothing 
but a hen-dirt compared to a dung-hill. What lots of gold and 
silver and diamonds, I saw there ! Such stars and orders ! The 
falcon-order, the goldeu-fieece, a lion-order, the eagle-order — yes, 
even a child — a right down small child, wore the whole order of 
the elephant. The children were masked, very pretty and played 
at pawns, and were dressed up like kings, with crowns on their 
heads, but one of the biggest was dressed precisely like old 
Nathan Rothschild. He acted his part very well, kept both 
his hands in his breeches-pockets, shook his money, shook his 
head as if in trouble when any of the little kings wanted to borrow 
any thing, and only showed favour to the little one with the white 
coat and red pants. This fellow he patted on the cheeks and praised 
him: — 'You're my boy, my pet, my pride — but let your cousin Mi- 
chael keep out of my way — I'll not lend the goose a penny — he 
spends more men in a year than he has to eat ; he'll make some 
trouble yet in the world and spoil my business.' As true as the 
Lord may help me, the little fellow played his part very well, par- 
ticularly when he helped a child to walk along who was dressed in 
white satin with real silver lilies, and now and then said to him : 
'Now, now — only take good care of yourself — get your living 
honestly, and look out that you're not driven away again, or I'll lose 
my money.' I tell you what, Doctor, it was a real pleasure to hear 
ho,w the little chap and the other children — right nice children they 
were— played their parts very well till cakes were brought to them, 
and they begun to fight for the best pieces, and grabbed the crowns 
off one another's heads, and screamed and cried, and some of 'em, 
even" 



— 829 



CHAPTER IX. 

There is nothing so stupid on the face of the earth, as to read a 
book of Travels in Italy — unless it be to write one — and the only 
way in which its author can make it in any degree tolerable is to 
say as little in it as possible of Italy. But though I have availed 
myself of this rule, I still cannot venture to promise the reader any 
thing strikingly captivating in the coming chapter. And if you 
who read become tired of the stupid stuff in it, just think of what a 
dreary time I must have had writing it ! I would recommend you, 
on the whole, to once in a while skip half a dozen leaves — for in 
that way you will arrive much sooner at the end. Lord ! how I wish 
that I could follow the same plan. And do not believe that I am 
jesting, for if I were to speak out in saddest earnestness the real 
opinion of my very heart, I would advise you to at once close these 
pages, and read no more therein. By and by I will improve ; and 
when we, in a book as yet unwritten, meet Matilda and Francesca 
together, the dear creatures shall delight you far more than any- 
thing in the present chapter or even in the next. 

The Lord be praised, I hear without, before my window, a hand- 
organ, with merry tunes. My befogged head needed such a clearing 
up, particularly as I must now describe my visit to his Excellency 
the Marquis Christophero di Gumpelino. I will narrate this deeply 
moving history, with the utmost accuracy, the most literal truth, and 
in all its filthy purity. 

It was late as I reached the home of the Marquis. As I entered 
the room, Hyacinth stood alone, cleaning the golden spurs of his 
master, who, as I perceived, through the half-opened door of his 
chamber, was on his knees before a Madonna and a great crucifix. 

For you must know, dear reader, that this noble man is now a 
good Catholic ; that he observes with the utmost strictness all the 
ceremonies of that Church which alone confers happiness ; and that 
when he is in Rome he keeps his own chaplain, on the same principle 
which induces him to keep in England the fastest horse, and in Paris 
the prettiest dancing girl. 

" Herr G-umpel is just now doing his prayers," whispered Hya- 
cinth, with a significant smile, and pointing to the cabinet of his 
master, added in a softer tone, " He lies that way every evening two 
hours on his knees before the Prima Donna with the Jesus-child. It 
is a splendid affair, and cost him six hundred francesconis." 

28* 



— 380 — 

" And you, Mr. Hyacinth, why don't you kneel behind him ? Or 
perhaps you are not inclined to the Catholic religion ?" 

" I'm inclined, and again I a'nt inclined," replied he, reflectively 
shaking his head. "It's a good religion for a genteel Baron, who 
can go about all day at his leisure, or for one who understands the 
fine arts — but it's no religion for a Hamburgher, for a man who has 
his business to mind, and no religion at all, any way you take it, foi 
a lottery collector. I must write down fair and square every number 
that's drawn, and if I happen to think of — bum ! bum ! bum ! — the 
Catholic bells, or if my eyes swim like Catholic incense, and I make 
a mistake, and set down the wrong number, the worst sort of trouble 
may come out of it. Many a time have I said to Herr Gumpel, 
' Your Excellency is a rich man, and can be as Catholic as you 
please, and may smoke up your wits with incense as much as you 
like, and may be as stupid as a Catholic bell, and still have victuals 
to eat; but I'm a business man, and must keep my seven senses 
about me, to earn something.' Herr Gcmpel thinks, of course, that 
it's necessary for my accomplishment, and that if I don't become 
Catholic that I can't understand the pictures which accomplish 
people — the Yerygreeno, the Correctshow, Caratshow, and Cra- 
vatshow- — but I've always held that all the Correctshows and Cra- 
vatshows wouldn't help much if nobody bought tickets of me, and 
then I should make a mighty poor show ! And I must own, Doc- 
tor, that the Catholic religion don't amuse me ; and, as a reasonable 
man, you must allow that when it comes to that, I'm right I don't 
see any fun in it — its something such a religion as if the Lord (the 
Lord forbid it !) had just died, and everything smelt of burial incense, 
and with it all, they roll out such a melancholy funeral music as to 
give one the blues — and the long and short of it is, that it's no reli- 
gion for a Hamburgher." 

" Well, then, Mr. Hyacinth, how do you like the Protestant 
religion ?" 

" That is altogether, on t'other hand, too common sense like, and 
if the Protestant churches hadn't an organ, it wouldn't be a religion 
at all. Between you and I, the religion does no harm, and is as pure 
as a glass of water — but it don't help any. I've tried it, sir — and 
the trial cost me four marks fourteen schilling." 

" How so, my good Mr. Hyacinth ?" 

" Well — do you see, Doctor, that I once came to the conclusion 
that it was a very enlightened religion, without any visionary notions 
or miracles — though by the way, I still think that a church must 






— 331 — 

have a few visionary notions, and a trifle in the way of miracles, to 
be one of the proper sort. ' But who'd ever work any miracle there ?' 
thought I, one day in Hamburgh, as I peeped into a Protestant church, 
one of the regular bald sort, with nothing but brown benches and 
white walls, and on the walls nothing but a blackboard, with half a 
dozen white numbers on it. 'But,' thinks I, 'may be you don't do 
justice to this religion — who knows but what these numbers can work 
a miracle as well as the image of the Virgin Mary, or a bone of her 
husband, saint Joseph?' and, to settle the matter, I went straight 
to Altona, and set these very numbers in the Altona lottery. The 
deuce I set with eight schilling, the terne with six, the qiiaterne with 
four, and the quinterne with two schilling. But I tell you, upon my 
honour, that not a single one of the Protestant numbers came out a 
prize I very soon made up my mind what to think of the Protes- 
tant business. A great religion, that, which can't so much as bring 
out the deuce I — and a nice goose I'd be to stake my salvation on a 
religion by which I've already lost four marks and fourteen schil- 
ling." 

" I dare say that the old Jewish religion suits you much better, 
my friend." 

" Doctor — the mischief take the old Jewish religion ! I don't wish 
it to my worst enemy. It brings nothing but abuse and disgrace. I 
tell you it ain't a religion, but a misfortune. I keep out of the way 
of everything that puts me in mind of it, and because Hirsch is a 
Hebrew word, and means hyacinth, I've let the old Hirsch run,* and 
now subscribe myself, 'Hyacinth, Collector, Operator, and Apprai- 
ser.' And then I have this advantage, that I've got an H on my 
seal ring, and my new name begins with an H, so that there's no 
need of having a new one cut. I tell you what- — it amounts to a good 
deal'in the long run, if you reckon up what a good name is worth to 
a man — name's everything. When I write, ' Hyacinth, Collector, 
Operator, and Appraiser,' it has another sort of a sound from plain 
Hirsch. Nobody can treat me like a common blackguard then." 

" My good Hyacinth, who would ever treat you in such a manner ? 
You appear to have done so much towards accomplishing yourself, 
that it is easy to recognise a refined character in you before you open 
your mouth." 

" You're right, Doctor — I have gone ahead like a giantess in im- 
proving myself. I really don't know who I ought to keep company 

* Hirsch is also a German word, and signifies a stag or deer. 



— 532 — 

with when I get back to Hamburgh — but I know what I'll do in the 
religion line. Just for the present I can get along with the new- 
Israelite temple, I mean the pure Mosaic-Lord's service, with ortho- 
graphic German hymns and moving sermons, and a few visionary 
notions, which are things no religion can do without. As true as the 
Lord may help me, I don't want any better religion, and it is worth 
keeping up. I mean to do my part for it, any how, and every Satur- 
day, when it isn't a day for drawing in the lottery, I'm going there. 
There are men, and m ore's the pity, who give this new faith a bad 
name, and say that it gives occasion for a schism — but I give you 
my word, it's a good sound religion — perhaps a little too good for 
common folks, for whom the old Jewish religion is good enough. A 
common man must have something stupid to make him happy, and 
he does feel happier in something of the sort. A regular old Jew, 
with a long beard and a ragged coat, and lousy at that, and who can't 
speak a word correct, perhaps feels better than I do, with all my 
accomplishment. There lives in Hamburgh, in the Baecker Breiten- 
gang, a man named Moses Lump,* — the folks call him Lumpy, for 
short, — and he runs around the whole week in wind and rain, with 
his pack on his back, to earn a few marks. Well, when Friday even- 
ing comes round, he goes home, and finds the seven-branched lamp 
all lighted, a clean white cloth on the table, and he puts off his pack 
and all his sorrows, and sits down at the table with his crooked wife 
and crookeder daughter, and eats with them fish which have been 
cooked in nice white garlic sauce, and sings the finest songs of King 
David, and rejoices with all his heart at the Exodus of the children 
of Israel from Egypt. He feels glad, too, that all the bad people 
who did anything bad to thenr-died at last ; that King Phaeaoh, 
Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and such like, are all 
dead, but that Lumpy is still alive, and eats fish with his. wife and 
child. And, I tell you what, Doctor, the fish are delicate, and the 
man is happy ; he hasn't any cause to torment himself with any 
' accomplishment ;' he sits just as contented in his religion and 
in his green night-gowm, as Diogenes in his cask, and he looks with 
joy at the lights burning, which he hasn't even the trouble of clean- 
ing. And I tell you that if the lights should happen to burn dim, 
and the Jewess, who ought to snuff them, isn't at hand, and if Boths- 
child the Great should happen to come in with all the brokers, dis- 
counters, forwarders, and head-clerks, with whom he overcomes the 

* Lump means in German not only a tatter or rag, but also a ragamuffin or black- 
guard. 



— 33a — 

world, and if he should say, " Moses Lump, ask what thou wilt, it 
shall be given thee," — Doctor, I believe that Moses would say, quiet 
and easy, " Pick the lamp, then !" and Rothschild the Great would 
answer, in wonder, " If I wasn't Rothschild, I'd like to be such a 
Lump as this J" 

As Hyacinth, according- to custom, thus developed his doctrines 
with epic copiousness, the Marquis rose from his cushions and came 
towards us, still mumbling a paternoster through his nose. Hya- 
cinth then drew the green curtain over the image of the Madonna 
which hung over the bed, extinguished the two candles, took down 
the bronze crucifix, and, approaching us, began to clean it with the 
same rag and with the same care with which he had just cleaned his 
master's spurs. But the Marquis was melting with heat and with 
soft sentiment ; instead of a coat he wore a full blue-silk domino, 
with silver fringe, and his nose shone sorrowfully, like an enamored 
louis d'or. " Oh Jesus !" he sighed, as he sank among the cushions 
of the sofa — "don't ypu think, Doctor, that I have a very dreamy, 
visionary, poetical look, this evening ? I am very much moved — my 
soul is melting ; I perceive from afar, a higher world. 

li ' My eye beholds the Heaven open, 
My heart leaps up in wondrous bliss.' " 

" Herr G-umpel, you must take something," interrupted Hyacinth. 
" The blood in your inside has got to going again. I know what is 
the matter with you." 

" You don't know," sighed his master. 

" I tell you I do," replied the man, nodding with his good-natured, 
going-to-work, little face. " I know you, in and out — I know. You 
are just my opposite ; when you're hungry I'm thirsty, and when I'm 
thirsty you're hungry. You are too corpulent, and I'm too lean. 
You have lots of imagination, and I've got all the more business 
capacity. I'm a prdcticus, and you're a diarrheticus* — in short, you 
are altogether my antipodex. 

" Ah, Julia !" sighed Gumpelino, " would that I were the yellow 
glove upon thy hand, and kissed thy cheek ! Doctor, did you ever 
see the actress Orelinger in Romeo and Juliet ?" 

"Of course, and my whole soul is still enraptured with the 
memory." 

* Hyacinth, in this sentence, is supposed to be attempting to " air" the Latin which 
ho bas picked up under his master. For diarrheticus read theoreticus, and for antipodex, 
antipodes. An instance of the erudite character of the Germans may be found in the fact 
that even among very vulgar people the Latin word podex is frequently used for its 
German equivalent — [Note by Translator] 



— 334 — 

" Well, then," cried the Marquis, with enthusiasm, and fire flashed 
from his eyes, illuminating his nose—" then you appreciate my feel- 
ings — then you know what I mean when I say I love ! I will show 
myself to you, and expose everything. Hyacinth, just step out of 
the room !" 

"I needn't go out," said his man, as if vexed; "You needn't 
stand on any ceremony with me, for I know what love is, too, and 
how it" — 

" You don't know !" cried the Marquis. 

" I'll prove that I know, Herr Marquis, by just speaking the name 
of Julia Maxfield. Oh be easy ! You're loved, too, but it's of 
no use. The brother-in-law of your lady never lets her go out of 
sight and watches her night and day like a diamond." 

" Ah ! wretched that I am," moaned Gumpelino — " I love and am 
loved again ; we secretly press each other's hands — we tread on each 
other's feet under the table — glance meaningly at each other — and 

yet can't find an opportunity to Ah ! how often I stand in the 

moonlight on the balcony, and imagine that I am Julia and that 
my Eomeo or my Gumpelino has promised me a rendezvous — and 
then I declaim exactly like the Crelinger : 

'Come night, come Gumpelino— day in night! 
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, 
Whiter than new snow on a raven's hack — 
Come, gentle night; come, loving, hlack-hrow'd night, 
Give me my Romeo — or Gumpelino!' 

— But ah ! Lord Maxfield watches us all the time, and we're both 
dying with intense desire. I shall never survive the day when either 
sets the blossom of youthful purity at stake, winning to lose. 
Ah ! I'd rather enjoy one such night with Julia than win the 
great prize in the Hamburgh lottery !" 

" What a crazy notion !" cried Hyacinth ; " the great prize ! — one 
hundred thousand marks !" 

" Yes — rather than the great prize," continued Gumpelino, "could 
I have one such night — and she has promised me often that I should 
have such a night when the first opportunity occurs, and I've often 
thought that early in the morning she would declaim to me — just 
like Crelinger — 

" ' Wilt thou hegone ? it is not yet near day ! 
It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; 
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: 
Believe mo, love, it was the nightingale.' " 



— 335 — 

" The great prize for only one night !" repeated Hyacinth several 
times as if he could never assent to such an assertion ; " I have a 
very high opinion, Herr Marquis, of your accomplishments, but I 
never did think you'd have brought your visionary fancies up to 
such a pitch. That any man could ever prefer love to the great 
prize ! Eeally, Herr Marquis — since I've waited on you I've got 
used to a great deal of accomplishment — but as far as I know, I 
wouldn't give an eighth of the great prize for all the love afloat. The 
Lord keep me from it ! Why, if I reckon off five hundred marks 
premium, there'd still remain twelve thousand marks. Love ! Why 
if I reckon up all together that I've ever paid out for love in all my 
life it only comes to twelve marks and thirteen schilling. Love ! 
Why I've had lots of love, free, gratis, for nothing ; only once in a 
while, to please my woman, I've cut her corns for her. I never had 
a real sentimental passionate love-scrape but once in my life, and 
that was for fat Sally of Dreckwall. She used to buy lottery tickets 
of me, and whenever I called on her to square accounts, she used to 
give me piece of cake — very good cake, indeed — and sometimes 
she'd fix up a nice little fancy dish for me, with a drop of liquor to 
it — and when I once told her that I was troubled with the blues, 
she gave me a receipe for the powder which her own husband used. 
I use the powder to this very day — it always works on me — and that 
was the only consequence which our love ever had. I thought, Herr 
Marquis, that may be you needed one of those powders. When I 
came to Italy they were the first thing I thought of, so I went to 
the apothecary and had 'em made up, and I always carry 'em about 
with me Just wait a minute and I'll hunt for 'era, and if I hunt 
for 'em I'll find 'em, and if I find 'em your Excellency's got to take 
'em." 

It would require too much time to repeat all the comments with 
which Hyacinth accompanied his researches, as he drew in succes- 
sion each of the following articles from his pocket. These were, — I. 
half a wax candle ; II., a silver case, in which he kept his instruments 
for cutting corns ; III., a lemon ; IV., a pistol, which, though un- 
loaded, was carefully wrapped in paper lest the sight of it might 
awaken apprehension ; V., a scheme of the last drawing of the 
Hamburgh lottery ; VI., a black leather bound little book, containing 
the Psalms of David and the debts not as yet collected ; VII., a dry 
willow withe, twined in a true-love-knot ; VIII., a little packet 
covered with faded rose-coloured silk, and containing the receipt in 
full for a lottery prize which had once won fifty thousand marks ; 



— 336 — 

lX., a flat piece of bread resembling ship's biscuit with a hole in the 
middle; and X., the above mentioned powder, which tfye little man 
took out, not without a certain emotion and a sorrowful shaking of 
the head. 

"When I think," he sighed, "that ten years ago, fat Saxly gave 
me this receipt and that I'm in Italy now and have the same receipt 
in my hands, and see the same words on it : ' sal mirable Glauber? 
— that means in German,. ' extra fine Glauber salt of the best qual- 
ity' — ah, I feel as if I had already taken the salt and could feel it 
a-working inside. What is man ! I'm in Italy a-thinking of fat 
Sally of Dreckwall ! Who'd a thought it ? — I can think I see her 
now — in the country, in her garden, where the moon shines, and 
where there must be for certain a nightingale singing — or may be a 
lark—" 

" It is the nightingale and not the lark !" sighed Gumpelino in 
parenthesis. 

' Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree, 
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.' " 

" It's all one to me," continued Hyacinth; "it may be a canary 
for all I care — only wild birds in the garden don't cost so much. 
The main thing is the hot-house and the carpet in the pavilion and 
the statuaries all round it — and among 'em there's a naked General 
somebody (one of the gods) — and the Yenus Urinia — both cost 
three hundred marks. And in the middle of the garden Sally's got 
a fontenelle,* and may be she's a-standing there, having make 
believe pleasures in her fancy, and thinking— of — me !" 

After this sigh followed a rapt silence, which the Marquis finally 
broke with a languishing tone and question — " Tell me, Hyacinth — 
on your honour — do you really believe that your medicine will have 
its effect ?" 

"Yes, upon honour, it will! Why shouldn't it work? It works 
on me. And ain't I a living man, just the same as you ? Glauber 
salts make all men alike, and when Eothschild takes Glauber salts 
they operate on him just as they would on the smallest broker. 
And I'll just tell you now how it's all done. I shake the powder 
into a glass, pour some water on it, and as soon as you've swallowed 
it you twist up your face and say — ' Prr — phew! — pooh!' Then you 
feel it a sort of quarrelling about inside of you, and you don't know 
what to make of yourself, and you lie down on the bed, and then I 
promise you 'pon honour that by and by vou'll 'get up, then you'll 

* Probably a fountain. 



— 837 — 

lay down again and get up again, and so on and so forth, and the 
jext morning you feel as light as an angel with white wings, and 
you'll dance about because you feel so well — only you'll look a little 
pale, but I know you like to look pale, because its languishing-like 
— and that's interesting." 

While thus chattering, Hyacinth had prepared the powder, but 
the Marquis he would have taken this pains for nothing had not the 
passage suddenly flashed into his mind, where Julia takes the draught 
which has such a dire effect on her destiny. " What do you think, 
Doctor," — he cried — " of the actress Mueller in Yienna ? I have seen 
her as Julia, and Lord ! Lord ! — how she did play ! I'm the greatest 
enthusiast for (Jrelinger, living — but Mueller, when she drank off 
the goblet, completely tore me down ! — See !" — this was his excla- 
mation as he took with a comic gesture the glass, into which Hya- 
cinth had poured the powder — " See ! this was the way in which she 
took the cup, and shuddered so that you could feel every thrill 
which she felt as she said : — 

" 'There is a faint cold fear which thrills my veins, 
And almost freezes up the heat of life.' 

" And so she stood — -just as I stand — and held the goblet to her 
lips, saying: — 

"'Stay, Talbot, stay!— 
Romeo, I come ! this do I drink to thee.' " 

And with these words he swallowed the medicine. 

" Much good may it do you, Herr Gumpel !" said Hyacinth, in a 
joyful tone ; for the Marquis had, in his inspiration, drained the 
entire dose, and sunk weary with declamation on the sofa. 

He did not remain long in this position, for almost immediately 
there was a knock at the door, and there entered Lady Maxfield's 
little jockey, who gave to the Marquis with a laugh and a bow, a note, 
and at once retired. Hastily did Gumpelino break the seal, and 
while he read, his eyes and nose gleamed with delight — but suddenly 
a spectral paleness covered his face, emotion was apparent in every 
muscle, and he sprang about with gestures of despair, laughing 
grimly, and rushed about the chamber, exclaiming — 

" What is it ? — what is it ?" cried Hyacinth, with a trembling 
voice, as he distractedly cleaned away at the crucifix, which he had 
again taken up — "Are we going to make our attack to-night?" 

" What is the matter, Herr Marquis ?" I inquired, equally 
astonished. 

29 



— 338 — 

"Bead! read!" — cried Gumpelino, as lie threw towards us thft 
note, and again rushed madly about the room, his blue domino 
streaming behind him like a storm-cloud. 

In the note we read the following words : — 

" Sweetest Gumpelino : 

"By break of day I must away to England. My brother-in-law 
has travelled on before, and awaits me in Florence. I am at present 
free, but alas ! only for this one night ! Let us, however, avail our- 
selves of it; let us drain the nectar goblet which love holds forth, 
even to the last drop. I await, I tremble. 

"JULIA MAXFIELD." 

" Woe me ! fool of Fortune !" bewailed Gumpelino — Love holds 
out to me his nectar-cup, and I — alas ! the Jack-fool of Fortune, 
have already drained a goblet of Glauber-salts.! Who can get the 
accursed stuff out of me now ? — Help ! help !" 

" No earthly living man can help you now !" sighed Hyacinth. 

" I pity you from my very heart," said I, condolingly. " To drain 
a tumbler of Glauber-salts, instead of a goblet of nectar, is bitter ! 
Instead of the throne of Love, the chair of night awaits you !" 

" Oh, Jesus ! oh, Jesus !" cried the Marquis ; " I feel it thrill 
through my every vein — oh true apothecary, thy drugs are quick ! — 
but it shall not hinder me, I will hasten to her ; I will sink at her 
feet and bleed !" 

" There's no blood in the business at all," replied Hyacinth. 
" Don't go off into rhapsodies. Don't be passionate !" 

" No, no ! I will hasten to her, into her arms — oh, night ! oh, 
night !" 

" I tell you," continued Hyacinth, with philosophical indifference, 
" that you will find no repose in her arms. You will have to get up 
twenty times during the night. Don't be so passionate. The more 
you run around the room and excite yourself, so much quicker the 
salts work. Your mind plays into the hands of nature. You must 
endure like a man what your fate has determined. Maybe it's good 
that it's come so, and perhaps it came so because it's good. Man 
is an earthly being, and doesn't understand the ways of Divinity. 
Folks often think they're going straight ahead to their happiness, 
and bad luck stands in the way with a stick ; and when a plain vulgar 
stick strikes a noble back, they feel it, Herr Marquis !" 

" Woe me ! a fool of Fortune !" raved Gumpelino. But his ser- 
vant calmly continued. 



— 339 — 

" A man often expects a cupfull of nectar, and instead of it gets 
horse-whip soup, — if the nectar is sweet, then the horse-whipping is 
all the bitterer ; and it is really lucky that the man who thrashes 
another must tire out sooner or later, or the fellow he whips could 
never stand it. But it is a great deal worse when bad luck hides 
in a man's way to Love, so that his life's in danger. Maybe, Herr 
Marquis, it is really all right that things have gone as they have, 
or perhaps — who knows — you might have been met on the way by 
a little Italian with a dirk six yards long, who would have run slap 
at you, and have stuck you (not to put too fine a point upon it) — 
through your calves. For a man can't holler for the watch here as 
in Hamburgh, and there are no policemen among the Appenines. 
Or maybe," continued the pitiless consoler, without paying the 
slightest attention to the growing rage of his master — "maybe 
when you were sitting snug and warm in Lady Maxfield's arms, the 
brother-in-law would have come rushing back and clapped a pistol to 
your breast, and made you sign a bill of a hundred thousand marks. 
I don't want to make mischief or tell lies — but I say suppose now — 
only suppose that you were a good-looking man, and Lady Maxfield 
was in despair for fear she should lose her bea>-, and was jealous — 
like all women — for fear some other woman mi^ht get you after she 
was gone, what would she do ? Why she'd just take an orange and 
put a little white powder on it, and say, ' Here, dear — just suck this 
and cool yourself off a little — you've got warm a running so fast,' — 
and the next day you'd be cooled down and no mistake. There was 
a man named Piper, who had a passional attraction for a female 
individual who was called Trumpet Angel Jenny, and she lived in 
the ' Coffee-factory,' and her husband by the Duck Pond " — 

" I wish, Hirsch," screamed the Marquis, in a rage, " I wish that 
your Piper of the Duck-Pond, and his Trumpet- Angel of the Coffee- 
Mill, and you and your Sally, all had my Glauber's salt rammed 
down your throats !" 

" What would you have, Herr Gumpel?" exclaimed Hyacinth, not 
without heat. " Was it my fault that Lady Maxfield's a-going 
away to-morrow, and invited you to come for to-night? Could I 
know that beforehand? Am I Aristotle? Have I got a situation 
in a prophecy office ? I only said that the powder would work, and 
it will work, just as sure as I'm a-going to Heaven, and if you go 
running about the room in such a disparaging and passional way, it'll 
work all the sooner" — 

"Well, then, I'll sit down calmly on the sofa."' groaned Gumpe- 



— 340 — 

uno ; and, stamping on the ground, he rolled in a rage on the sofa, 
restrained his mood by a mighty effort, and both servant and master 
gazed long and silently at each other, until the latter said, with a 
deep sigh and in a whimperingtone — 

" But, Hiksch, what will the lady say if I don't come ? She waits 
for me, yes, lingers and trembles and burns with love'"' — 

" She has a beautiful foot," said Hyacinth to himself, and sorrow- 
fully shook his little head. But there were mighty throbs of emotion 
at work in his heart, and a shrewd idea was working itself out under 
his scarlet coat. 

" Herr Gumpel," said the words, as they came forth, " send 

me I" 

And as he spoke, a deep blush stole over the sallow business 
countenance. 



CHAPTER X. 



"When Candide came to El Dorado, he saw several boys in the 
street who were playing with nuggets of gold, instead of stones. 
This extravagance made him think that they must be royal children, 
and he was not a little astonished to learn that, in El Dorado, nug- 
gets of gold were as valueless as flint-pebbles with us ; so that the 
very school-boys played with them. Something very similar hap- 
pened to one of my friends, who, when he first came to Germany and 
read German books was greatly amazed at the wealth of thought 
which he found in them — but soon observed that thoughts are as 
common in Germany as gold ingots in El Dorado, and that many 
a writer who seems to be an intellectual prince, is, after all, a mere 
school-boy. 

This reflection often occurs to me, when I am about to write down 
the most admirable reflections on Art and Life. Then I laugh, and 
keep my thoughts in my pen, or scribble in their stead a picture, or a 
carpet-pattern on the paper, persuading myself that such carpets are 
more useful in Germany — that intellectual El Dorado — than the gol- 
denest thoughts. 

Dear reader, I shall bring on the carpet now spreading out before 
thee, the familiar figures of Gumpelino and his Hiesch-Hyacinth ; 
and if the former be painted with less accurate traits, I trust that 
you will be sharp-witted enough to appreciate a negative character, 



even if pcsitive points be wanting in it. For he might bring a suit 
for libel against me, or something even more significant. Besides, he 
is the natural ally of my enemies — he upholds them with subsidies, 
he is an aristocrat, an ultra-papist ; in fact, he only wants one thing 
as yet to be as bad as possible, and that one thing he must soon 
learn, having the book which teaches it already in his hands — as you 
will perceive from my picture carpet. 

It was again evening ; on the table stood two candelabras with 
lighted wax candles, and their gleam flashed on the golden frames 
of the pictures of saints hanging on the wall, and which, in the flick- 
ering light and wavering shadow, seemed inspired with life. With- 
out, before the window, the dark cypress trees stood strangely 
motionless in the silver moonlight, while far in the distance resounded 
a sad hymn to the Virgin, rising and swelling in broken tones — 
apparently the voice of a sick child. The air within was close and 
warm, and the Marquis Christophoro di Gumpelino sat or rather 
reclined in aristocratic indolence on the cushions of the sofa, his 
noble though overheated figure being again clad in its blue silk 
domino, while in his hands he held a book bound in scarlet morocco- 
paper, heavily gilt, and from which he declaimed in a loud yet lan- 
guishing tone. His eyes had that charming lustre peculiar to 
enamoured tom-cats, and his cheeks, including the side-wings of the 
nose, were pale as if from suffering. Still this pallor admits of a 
philosophically anthropological explanation, if we remember that the 
Marquis had swallowed the night before a whole tumbler of Glauber 
salts. 

Hirsch Hyactnthus was down on all fours on the floor, and with 
a great piece of white chalk was busy in drawing on the brown tiles, 
the following characters, or something like them — 



29* 



— 342 — 

This business appeared to be anything but agreeable to the little 
man, for puffing at every stoop, he growled vexedly, " Spondee — 
Trochee, Jambus, Pyrr-hic, Anapest — and the pest I" For the sake 
of working more at his ease, he had taken off his red coat, and there 
now appeared two short modest looking legs in tight scarlet breeches, 
and somewhat longer arms, in white loose sleeves. 

" What curious figures are those ?" I inquired. 

" These are feet, the size of life," he groaned for answer — " and 1 
wretched man ! — must keep these feet in my head, and my hands 
already ache with all the feet they've had to write. These are the 
real feet of poetry — and if it wasn't for the accomplishments I'm 
getting, I'd let the poetry run with all its feet. Just now, I have 
private lessons from the Marquis in the poetry-business. The Mar- 
quis reads the poem and explains how many feet there are in it, and 
then I must note them down and reckon up whether the poem is all 
right." 

" You find us," remarked the Marquis in didactically pathetic 
tone, " engaged in a truly poetic occupation. I well know, Doctor, 
that you belong to that body of poets who have ideas of their own, 
and do not perceive that in poetry, metre is the main thing. But a 
refined spirit can only express itself in refined forms, and these are 
only to be learned from the Greeks and from those modern poets 
who strive to think like Greeks, feel like Greeks, and bring their 
feelings home, in the Greek fashion, to a man." 

"To man, of course, and not to woman, as an unclassic, romantic 
poet is bound to do," replied my Insignificance. 

" Herr Gumfel talks, now and then, like a book," whispered Hya- 
cinth aside to me, as he contracted his thin lips, winked his little 
eyes with delighted pride, and significantly shook his small head, 
whose every motion was one of wondering amazement. " I tell 
you," he continued, in somewhat louder tones, "he talks sometimes 
like a book, and then he's what you might call no sort of a man at 
all, but a higher sort of being, and I become regularly dumb the 
nearer I come to him." 

" And what have you there in your hands ?" I inquired of the 
M arquis. 

" Gems," he replied, laconically, holding out the book. 

At the word " gems," Hyacinth leaped up, but when he saw the 
book smiled pityingly. The precious gem in question had on its 
title-page the following words : 



— 343 — 

POEMS 

OP 

AUGUST, COUNT VON PLATEN. 

STUTTGA&D AND TUEBINGEN : 
PUBLISHED BY J. G. COTTA. 

1828. 

On the blank leaf was neatly written, " A Gift of true Brotherly 
Friendship." 

Meanwhile, the work smelt of a certain singular perfume, which 
has not the slightest affinity with Eau de Cologne, and which was 
perhaps to be attributed to the circumstance that the Marquis had 
been reading in it all night long. 

" I havn't slept a wink all night," he complained to me. I was so 
severely worked that I had to get up eleven times. Fortunately, I 
had this glorious bit of reading by me, and I got from it. not only 
poetical instruction, but also sound consolation for life. Look ! see 
how I honor the bodk ! there is not a single leaf torn out of it, and 
yet as I sat — you understand me — I was often tempted" — 

"You are not the first, Herr Marquis, who has undergone the 
same temptation." 

" I swear, sir, by our blessed Lady of Loretto, and as true as I'm 
an honorable man, that these poems havn't their equal !• You know 
that I was in a state of desperation yesterday evening — au desespoir, 
as one might say — because Fate forbade me to possess my Julia. 
Then I read these poems — one every time when I had to get up — 
and the result has been, that I feel as indifferent to women as if not 
one of the creatures had ever existed. And that is the beauty of 
this poet, that he only burns with warm feelings — friendship- — for 
men. Yes, he prefers us to women ; and for this very preference we 
ought to be grateful to him. How much greater he is, in this, than 
common poets ! You do not find hyn flattering the every day tastes 
of the masses ; he cures us of that passion for women which causes 
us so much suffering. Oh woman S woman ! what a benefactor to his 
race is that man who frees us from your chains ! It is an eternal 
shame that Shakspeare never applied his wonderful theatrical talent, 
to this end since he, as I have just found in these poems, was inspired 
by the same greatness of soul as the great Count Platen, who says, 
in his sonnets, of Shakspeare : 

" A maid's caprices never broke thy slumbers, 
And yet for friendship still we see thee yearning ; 
From female snares, a friend thy steps is turning, 
His friendship is thy care, and fires thy numbers." 



— 344 — 

While the Marquis declaimed these rerses with enthusiasm, and 
while the moisture gathered on his tongue, Hyacinth was making a 
series of grimaces which were evidently inspired by anything but 
assent, though they appeared partly to be those of vexation and partly 
of affirmation, until he at last exclaimed — 

" Herr Marquis, you talk like a book, and the verses go out like a 
purge, but I don't like their contents As a man, I feel flattered that 
Count Platen gives us the preference, but, as a friend to women, I 
go against such men. Such is man ! One likes onions, and another 
has the feeling for warm friendship ; but I, as an honest man, must 
confess that I prefer onions, and that a cross-eyed cook maid is more 
to my taste than the most beautiful friend, such as your poet talks 
about. And, in fact, I must say, that I, for one, can't begin to see 
so much beauty in the male sex that one can fall in love with it." 

Hyacinth spoke these last words while giving a side squint at his 
own reflection in the mirror, as though he were the ideal pattern of 
manly perfection. But the Marquis, without suffering himself to be 
disturbed read on — 

" 'Hope's foam-built palaces may fall together, 
We strive, yet do not come at all together ; 
Melodious from thy mouth my name is ringing, 
And yet my verse thou wilt not call together, 
Like sun and moon must we be ever parted, 
That use and custom may be all together ? 
«*► Oh lean thine head on mine for sweet in union, 

Thy dark locks and my light ones fall together; 
But ah ! I dream, for lo I see thee parting 
Ere joy has found us in one thrall together; 
Our souls are bleeding since our forms are parted, 
Would we were flowers, oft bound and all together!' " 

" Queer poetry that !" exclaimed Hyacinth, as he re-echoed trie 
rhymes, " ' Use and custom all together,' ' thrall together ' and ' fall 
together ' ! Queer poetry ! I've got a cousin who, when he reads 
poetry, often for fun puts 'from before' and ' from behind' in turn at 
the end of every other verse, but I declare I never knew that the 
poems he made up that way ought to be called ' Gazelles.' I must 
try myself and see whether the verses which the Marquis has just 
declaimed won't be improved by putting ' from before ' and ' fi om 
behind,' in turn after the 'together.' Depend upon it they'll be 
twenty per cent, stronger !" 

Without attending to this speech, the Marquis drove ahead in his 
declamation of "gazelles" and sonnets, in which the loving one sings 
his " friend of beauty," praises him, wails over him, accuses him of 



— 345 — 

indifference, devises plans to attain him, ogles him, is jealous of him, 
languishes for him, fondles through a whole scale of love-tones with 
him, and that so meltingly, amorously and lecherously, that the 
reader would suppose that the poet were a maiden suffering with 
nymphomania. One thing, however, must seem to him, to a certain 
degree extraordinary, that this maiden is always complaining that her 
love is contrary to the usual manner or " custom ;" that she cherishes 
as intense a hatred of this "custom which parts," as a pick-pocket 
could against the police ; that in. her love she would fain embrace 
the "limbs" of her friend; that she laments dolefully over envious 
wretches who cunningly part us, " to hinder us and keep us ever 
parted ;" that she bewails annoying personal afflictions on the part 
of her friend ; that she assures him that she will only casually glance 
at him ; that she protests that " no single syllable shall shock thine 
ear," and finally confesses, that 

" My wish, in others but gave birth to strife, 
Thou hast not granted it, but oh! as yet 
Thou hast not said me nay, oh my sweet life!" 

I must do the Marquis the justice to admit, that he declaimed 
these verses well, sighed at full length in repeating them, and 
groaned as .he slid- along the sofa, as if sympathetically coquetting 
with the cushions. Meanwhile Hyacinth continued to babble the 
verses after him, not omitting to interweave with them his own 
original chatter. He honoured the odes with the most attention. 
" There's a heap more to be learned," quoth he, " from this sort of 
poetry, than from your sonnets and gazelles ; for in the odes the feet 
are set down all fair and square, and a man can count up every 
poem nice and easy. Every poet ought to do in his hardest poetry- 
verses like Count Platen — that is, set it down with the feet up, and 
say to folks, " See here — I'm an honourable man, one of the kind 
that don't cheat. The straight and crooked marks which I put 
before every poem, are what you may call the counter-feet* of it, and 
you may reckon up for yourself the trouble it all cost me. In fact, 
they're a kind of yard-stick for every poem— take it and measure 'em 
with it, and if you find I cheat you out of a single syllable, why then 

call me a d d rascal — that's all !" But then the public may be 

taken in just by the honourable face he puts on it. When the feet 
are all set down so honest-looking and plain, the reader '11 say — ■ 
" Well, I'm not going to be one of your suspicious sort — what's the 

* Conto-finto, a simulated account. 



— 346 — 

ase of counting after the man — I dare say it's all right ! — I ain't 
a-going to do it !" And he don't do it- — and gets cheated. And 
who can always count 'em up ? Now we're in Italy and I've got 
time to write the feet on the ground with chalk, and collate every 
ode. But in Hamburgh, where I've my business to attend to, I've 
no time for it, and must take Count Platen without calling him to at 
account, just as a man takes the bags of money from the treasury with 
the number of the dollars they hold, written on 'em. They go about, 
sealed up, from one man to another, every body takes it for granted 
that they hold as much as the number says — and yet it has hap- 
pened, that a man who didn't have much to do has opened one and 
counted the specie, and found it ran short a few dollars. And there 
may be just the same sort of swindling in poetry. Particularly do 
I mistrust when I think of bags of money. For my own brother-in- 
law has told me, that in the House of Correction at Odensee, they've 
got a fellow who had some sort of a situation in the Post Office, and 
who opened the specie-bags that went through his hands, and then 
sewed 'em up again and forwarded 'em. When one hears of such 
rascality, he loses his trust in fellow-mortals, and gets to be a mis- 
trustful man. There's ever so much rascality in this world, and I 
suppose it's the same in the poetry business as in any other." 

"Honesty," continued' Hyacinth, while the Marquis declaimed 
on, all absorbed in feeling and without attending to us, " Honesty, 
Doctor, is the correct thing, and a man who isn't honest I consider 
as a scamp, and when I consider a man as a scamp, I'll buy nothing 
from him, read nothing of his, in short, devil the bit of business of 
any sort will I do with him. I'm a man, Doctor, who don't set my- 
self up on any thing, but if there's any thing I do set myself up on, 
it is on doing the correct thing. If you've no objection, I'd like to 
tell you of a noble trait in my character, and you'll be astonished at 
it. I tell you you'll be astonished as sure as I'm an honorable man. 
There's a man lives in the Spear-Place in Hamburgh, and he's a 
green-grocer, and his name's Blocky — that is to say, I say that his 
name's Blocky because we're good Mends, for his real name is 
Block. And his wife of course is Madam Block, and she never 
could bear that her husband should buy lottery tickets of me and 
when he did, I did'nt dare to go to his house with 'em. So he used 
to tell me in the street, ' I want this or that number, and here's the 
money, Hirsch !' And I'd say, /All right, Blocky !' And when I 
got home, I used to lay the number he'd taken apart for him under 
cover, and write on it in German hand, ' On account of Herr Chris 



— 347 — 

tian Hinrich Block.' And now just listen and be astonished. It 
was a fine spring day and the trees round the Exchange were all 
green, and the zephyr airs were nice, and the sun shone in the 
heaven and I stood by the Bank of Hamburgh. And then Blocky 
— my Blocky, you know — came walking along with fat Mrs. Blocky 
on his arm, and was the first to speak to me, and spoke of the 
Lord's splendid Spring, and made some patriotic remarks on the 
town-guard, and asked me how business was, and I told him that a 
little while before there'd been a chap in the pillory, and so as we 
talked he told me that the night before he'd dreamed that number 
1538 had drawn the grand prize — and just at that instant, while 
Madam Block was looking at the statutes of the Emperors before 
the Town-hall, he put thirteen louis d'ors, full weight, into my hand. 
Lord ! it seems to me that I can feel them now — and before Madam 
could turn around, I said, 'All right, Blocky!' and ^vent away. 
And I went at once, without stopping, to the head office and got 
number 1538, and covered it up as soon as I was home, and wrote 
on the cover, ' On account of Herr Christian Hinrich Block." 
And what did the Lord do ? Fourteen days later, to try my 
honesty, he let number 1538 turn up a prize of fifty thousand marks. 
And what did Hirsch then do, the same Hirsch who now stands 
before you ? This Hirsch put on a clean white shirt, and a clean 
white cravat, and took a hackney coach and went to the head office, 
and drew his fifty thousand marks and rode with 'em to the Spear- 
Place. — And when Blocky saw me, he says, ' Hirsch, what are you 
dressed up so fine for, to-day ?' I however didn't answer a word, 
but set a great astonishing bag of gold on the table, and said, right 
cheerful and jolly, ' Herr Christian Hinrich Block ! — number 1538, 
which you were so kind as to order of me, has been so lucky 
as to draw fifty thousand marks. I have the honor to present you 
that same money in this bag, and take the liberty of begging a re- 
ceipt for the amount !' When Blocky heard that, he began to cry ; 
when Madame Block heard it, she cried ; the fat red servant-girl 
cried; the crooked shop-boy cried ; the children cried ; and I? a man 
of feelings as I am, couldn't cry at all, but fainted dead away, and it 
wasn't till I came to, that the tears came into my eyes — like a river 
—and I cried for three hours !" 

The voice of the little man quivered as he told this story, and with 
ail air of joy he drew from his pocket the packet I have already 
spoken of, unrolled the faded rose silk, and showed me the document 
in which Herr Christian Hinrich Block acknowledged the receipe 



— 348 — 

of fifty thousand marks. " When I die," said Hyacinth with a tear 
in his eye, " this receipt must be buried with me, and on the Judg- 
ment Day, when I must give an account of all my deeds, then I will 
go with this receipt in my hand before the throne of the Lord, and 
when my Evil Angel has read off the list of all the evil deeds I've 
been guilty of, and my good angel has read off in turn all my good 
deeds, I'll say, calm and easy, ' Be quiet ! — all I want to know is if 
this receipt is correct ? — is that the handwriting of Herr Christian 
Hinrich Block ?' Then a little angel will come flying up, and he'll 
say that he knows Block's hand perfectly well, and he'll tell the 
whole story of the honorable business I carried through. — And the 
Creator of Eternity, the Almighty, who knows all things will re- 
member. it all and he will praise me before the sun, moon and stars, 
and reckon up at once in his head that if the value of my evil deeds 
be subtracted from fifty thousand marks, that' there'll remain a bal- 
ance to my account, and he'll say, ' Hirsch, you are appointed an 
angel of the first class, and may wear wings with white and red 
feathers.' " 



CHAPTER XL 



Who is, then, the Count Platen, whom we have, in the previous 
chapter, learned to know as a poet and warm friend ? Ah ! dear 
reader, I have been reading that very question for a long time in 
your countenance, and it is with a trembling heart that I set about 
answering it. The worst thing with German authors is, that when- 
ever they show up a fool, they must beforehand set him forth in full, 
by means of wearisome descriptions of character, and personal pe- 
culiarities, firstly, that the reader may know of his existence, and 
secondly, that they may understand how, where, and when the lash 
cuts — before or behind. It was a different matter with the ancients, 
and it is still different with some modern nations, for instance, the 
English and French, who have a public life, and, in consequence, pub- 
lic characters. We Germans, on the contrary, though we have a 
foolish enough public, have very few fools, distinguished enough to 
be generally recognised as 'characters,' when used in prose or in 
verse. The few men of this mould whom we possess are perfectly 
justifiable in giving themselves airs of importance. They are of in- 
estimable value, and are entitled to the highest claim to our conside- 



— 349 — 

ration. For instance, the Herr Privy Counsellor Schmaltz, Pro- 
fessor at the University of Berlin, is a man worth his weight in gold ; 
a humorous writer could never do without him, and he himself is so 
perfectly conscious of his personal importance and needfulness that 
he loses no opportunity to supply such writers with material for 
satire. For this purpose, therefore, he labors night and day, either 
as statesman, civil villain, or civilian,* deacon, anti-Hegelian, and 
patriot, to make himself as ridiculous as possible, and thus advance 
that literature for which he sacrifices himself. And therefore the 
German universities deserve great praise, since they supply us with 
more fools than any other trades- unions, especially Goettingen, which 
I have never failed to appreciate, so far as this point is concerned. 
This is the true and secret reason why I have always boldly advocated 
the maintenance of the Universities, even while preaching freedom 
of exercising a trade, and recommending the abolition of the guilds. 
When fools of note are thus wanting, the world cannot be too grate- 
ful to me, should I bring out a few new ones, and render them avail- 
able. For the advancement of literature, I will therefore now speak 
more in detail of Count August von Platen Hallekmunde. I will 
so arrange it, that he may be made well enough known to be useful, 
and to a certain degree celebrated, giving him, as it were, a literary 
fattening, as the Iroquois are said to do with prisoners who are sub- 
sequently devoured at their festivals. In this business, I shall act 
with all due honor and courtesy, as a good citizen should, touching 
on the material, or so-called personal interests, only so far as they 
are needed, to throw light upon spiritual phenomena, always giving 
the point of view from which I regarded him, and not unfrequently 
exhibiting the spectacles wherewith I took my peep. 

The point of view from which I first beheld Count Platen, was 
Munich, the scene of those efforts which rendered him very celebrated 
among his acquaintances, and where he will unquestionably be im- 
mortal — so long as he lives. The spectacles with which I saw him 
belonged to certain inhabitants cf the city, who, in their merry mo- 
ments, occasionally indulged in merry remarks relative to his personal 
appearance. I have never seen him myself, and when I have a fancy 
to imagine him, I recall the droll rage with which my friend, Doctor 
Lautenbaoher, attacked poetic folly in general, and particularly that 
of a certain Count Platen, who, with a wreath of laurel on his brow, 
stood in an attitude of poetic inspiration on the public promenade at 

* Servilist in the original which I presume to he a Rahelisian " twist" of the word 
Civilist. — [Note by Translator.] 

30 



— 350 — 

Erlangen, staring, with spectacled nose, up at Heaven. Others have 
spoken better of the poor Count, lamenting only his straitened cir- 
cumstances, which, as he was very ambitious of honor, compelled him 
to extraordinary industry, and thus at least gave him distinction as a 
poet. They also praised his complaisance and courtesy towards 
younger people, with whom he was modesty itself, since he only, in 
the most amiable manner, begged their permission to occasionally 
visit them in their rooms ; and carried his kindness so far as to call 
again, even when they had intimated, in the most significant manner, 
that his calls were no longer agreeable. Such stories, of course, 
moved my pity to a certain extent, although I found that his failures 
in the art of pleasing were very natural. In vain the poor Count 
often complained that 

"Thy beautiful blonde youth, thou gentle boy, 
Rejects a dismal, melancholy friend. 
Well, then! my thoughts to jest and joke I'll lend, 
Instead of tears, which now my spirits cloy : 
And for the unknown gift of laughing joy, 
My earnest prayers ere long to Heaven shall tend!" 

In vain the poor Count declared that he was destined to become 
the greatest of poets ; that the shadow of the laurel was already 
visible on his brow, and that he could also make his sweet boys im- 
mortal, in poems which would live forever. Alas ! even this celebrity 
was not acceptable to any one, nor was it, in fact, a thing to be par- 
ticularly desired. I shall never forget the suppressed laughter with 
which one of these candidates for immortality was stared at by some 
genial friends, one day, in the Arcade at Munich. One sharp-witted 
knave even declared that he could see the reflection of a laurel wreath 
between the coat tails of the candidate. So far as I am concerned, 
dear reader, I am not so malicious as you think; I pity the poor 
Count, and when others mock him, I doubt whether he has ever prac- 
tically revenged himself on the hated " custom" spoken of, although 
in his songs he sighs for such revenge — no, I rather believe in the 
repulsive afflictions, injurious disregard, and rejections, of which he 
sings so plaintively. 1 believe, in fact, that he acted towards morality 
in a far more laudable manner than he was desirous of doing, and it 
is possible that he can boast, with General Tilly, "I was never 
intoxicated, never touched a woman, and never lost a battle." It 
was, beyond question, for this that the poet says of himself : 

" Thou art a sober and a modest youth." 



— 351 — 

The poor youth, or rather the poor old youth — for he had several 
lustrums behind him— once squatted, unless I err, at the University 
of Erlangen, where some sort of occupation had been allotted him, 
but as this was insufficient for his soaring spirit, since with his in- 
creasing lustrums he lusted with greater lustiness for illustrious 
lustre, and as he day by day felt himself more inspired with his future 
glory, he gave up his business, being determined to live by writing, 
by gifts from Heaven whenever they might turn up, and by similar 
earnings. For the county of the Count is unfortunately situated in 
the moon, and, owing to the bad state of the roads which communi- 
cate with Bavaria, will not (according to Gruithuisen's calculation) 
be attainable until 20,000 years have elapsed, after which time, when 
that planet approaches the earth, he will be able to draw from it 
his enormous revenues. 

At an earlier period Don Platen De Collibrados Haller- 
munde had published by Brockhaus in Leipsig, a collection of 
poems with the title of " Lyrical Leaves, No. L," which of course 
met with no success, although he assured us in the preface that the 
Seven Wise Men had lavished their praise on the author. At a 
later date he wrote, in Tieck's style, several dramatic legends and 
stories, which also had the fortune to remain hidden from the igno- 
rant multitude and were only read by the Seven Wise Men. In 
order to get a few more readers the Count applied himself to con- 
troversy, and wrote a satire against eminent writers, especially 
against Muei.lner, who was already universally hated and morally 
overthrown, so that the Count came just in the nick of time to give 
the dead Court Counsellor Oerindur, another coup de grace, not 
gracefully however, but very awkwardly in the Falstaffian manner 
in the thigh. A dislike of Muellner inspired every noble heart, the 
attack of the Count " took," and " The Mysterious and Terrible 
Fork" met here and there with a kindly reception, not from the 
public at large but among literati and the regular school-people — the 
latter being pleased with the satire because it was not an imitation 
of the romantic Tieok, but of the classic Aristophanes. 

I believe that it was about this time that the Count travelled to 
Italy, no longer entertaining a doubt but that he would be able to 
live by his poetry. Cotta had indeed paid him the common prosaic 
honor to pay him money for his bill for poetry; for Poetry, the 
nobly-born, never has any money herself, and when in difficulties 
always goes to Cotta. Now the Count versified day and night ; he 
no longer copied the patterns of Tieck and of Aristophanes, but 



— 352 — 

imitated first Goethe in ballads, then PIorace in odes, then 
Petrarch in sonnets, then Hafiz in Persian gazelles — in short, he 
gave us, such as it was, a selection of flowers of the best poets, and* 
with it his own lyrical leaves, under the title of." Poems of Count 
Platen, &c." 

No one in Germany is so indulgent as I towards poetic produc- 
tions, and I am willing from my very soul that a poor devil like 
Platen should enjoy his bit of celebrity which he has so bitterly 
earned by the sweat of his brow. And no one is more willing to 
praise his industry, his efforts and his poetry, or to recognize his 
metrical merits. My own efforts enable me better than another to 
appreciate those merits. The bitter labor, the indescribable perse- 
verance, the chattering of teeth through weary winter nights, the 
restrained anger at a fruitless straining for effect, is far more appar- 
ent to one of us than to the ordinary reader who supposes that the 
smoothness, neatness and polish of the Count's verses are the effect 
of ease, and who thanklessly enjoys himself over the glittering play 
of words, just as spectators at the feats of circus artistes, when they 
behold the latter dancing on ropes, hopping among eggs, or stand- 
ing on their heads, never reflect that the poor fellows have acquired 
this pliancy of limb and poetry of motion only by long years of hard 
work and bitter hunger. I, who have never worried myself so much 
in poetry, and who have always exercised it in company with good 
eating, esteem poor Platen all the more, since his experiences 
have been of such a sour and sober nature ; I will boast for him that 
no literary rope-dancer in Europe can balance so well as he on slack 
gazelles, that no one can perform so well as he such an egg dance as 



v— I v^ W W 



, &c. 



and that no one can stand so well on his head. If the muses are 
not complaisant to him, he at least has the genius of our language 
in. his power, or knows how to clothe it with power. As for win- 
ning the willing love of the genius, it is beyond his power, he must 
perseveringly run after this youth as after others, and his utmost 
ability is to catch the outward form, which despite its beautiful 
contour never speaks to our soul. Never did the deep tones of 
nature, as we find them in popular song among children and other 
true poets, burst from the soul of Platen, or bloom forth like an 
apocalypse from it the desperate effort which he is obliged to make 
in order to say something he calls a "great deed in words," — for so 



— '653 — 

utterly unfamiliar is he with the true spirit of poetry, that he does 
not know that the successful mastery of words can only be a great 
deed for the rhetorician; for the true poet it should be a natural 
occurrence. Unlike the true poet, language was never yet his mas- 
ter; on the contrary, he has become master of it, playing on it as a 
virtuoso plays on an instrument. The more he advanced in this 
mechanical facility, the higher opinion did he form of his own powers 
of performance ; he learned how to play in every manner and metre; 
he versified even the most difficult passages, often poetising, so to 
speak, on the G string, and was vexed when the public did not 
applaud. Like all virtuosi who have developed this sort of single- 
string talent, he only exerted himself for applause, regarding with 
anger the celebrity of others. He envied his colleagues all that they 
gained, as for instance, when he fired five-act pasquinades at Clauren 
at a time when he could not attract more than a mere poetic squib 
at himself; he laid a strong hand on every review in which others 
were praised, and cried without ceasing, " I am not sufficiently 
praised, I am not sufficiently praised, for I am the poet, the poet of 
poets," &c. Such a hunger and thirst for praise, and for alms, was 
never yet shown by a true poet, by Klopstock or by Goethe, to 
whose companionship Count Platen has appointed himself, although 
any one can see that he justly forms a triumvirate only with Aug. 
Wilhelm von Schlegel, and perhaps with Ramler. " The great 
Ramler," as he was called in his own time, when he, without a 
laurel-crown, it is true,, but with all the greater cue and hair-bag, 
with his eyes raised to Heaven, and with a canvass umbrella under 
his arm, wandered scanning about in the Berlin Thiergarten; believed 
himself to be the representative of poetry on earth. His verses 
were the most perfect in the German language, and his adorers, 
among whom even a Lessing went astray, believed that poetry could 
go no further. Such, at a late date, was almost the case with Aug. 
Wilhelm von Schlegel, whose poetical insufficiency became mani- 
fest as the language was more fully developed, so that many who. 
once looked upon the singer of Arion as an Arion himself, now re- 
gard him merely as a school-master of some ability. But whether 
Count Platen is as yet qualified to laugh at the otherwise really 
great Schlegel, as the latter once laughed at Ramler, I cannot 
take it on me to say. But this I do know, that they are all three 
on a par in poetry, and though Count Platen, in his gazelles, dis- 
plays ever so exquisitely his juggling arts of balance; though he 
executes his egg-dance ever so admirablv, and if he, in his plays, eveu 

30* 



— 354 — 

stands on his head — he is not for all that a poet." " He is no poet," 
say the ungrateful youths whom he so tenderly sings. " He is no 
poet," respond the ladies, who perhaps (I must say this at least 
in his behalf) are not altogether impartial judges in the matter, 
and who, from the penchant which they detect in him, are either 
jealous or fearful that the tendency of his poems is such as to 
endanger their hitherto favourable position in society. Severe 
critics, who wear first-class spectacles, add their voice to this ver- 
dict, or express themselves with more laconic significance. " What 
do you find in the poems of the Count Platen von Halleemunde?" 
[ recently asked such a man. "I find bottom!" was the reply.* "You 
refer to the fundamental and laborious character of his style?" I 
replied. " No," said he, " I refer also to the subject matter." 

As regards this subject matter of the Platen poems, it is one 
which I cannot honestly praise, and yet I cannot unconditionally 
assent to the furious disapprobation with which our Catos speak of 
them — or are silent ! Chacun a son gout, the one loves an ox, the 
other Waschischta's cow. I even blame the terrible Rhadamanthine 
seriousness with which this subject matter of the Platen poems is 
made in turn the subject of scientific criticism in the Berlin annuals. 
But such are men, and so easy do they find it to fall in a rage, when 
speaking of sins which they've no mind to. I recently read, in the 
Morgenblatte, an article entitled " From the Journal of a Reader," in 
which Count Platen expressed himself against those who so severely 
blame his " friendship-love," with that modesty which is his distin- 
guishing characteristic, and by which his style may be readily recog- 
nised in the article referred to. When he says that the " Hegelian 
Weekly Journal" accuses him, with " laughable pathos," of a secret 
vice, he then, as the reader will infer, simply anticipates the censure 
of people, whose opinion he has ascertained from others. He 
has, however, been wrongly informed ; in this light, the pathetic 
shall never be found fault with by me ; the noble Count is to me rather 
an agreeable subject, and in his noble penchant I only behold some- 
thing anachronistic, or a timid and bashful parody of an antique excess 
of passion. And here we hit the nail on the head — in ancient times, 
that taste was in accordance with the manner of the age, and showed 
itself with heroic openness. As, for instance, when the Emperor 
Nero, on vessels of gold and ivory, held a banquet which cost mil- 
lions, and, amid public festivities, married, from out his seraglio of 
youths, one named Pythagoras, (cuncta denique spectata quae etiam 

[* Sitzfleisch ! war die Antwort.] 



— ooo 

mfeminanox operit,) and afterwards fired Rome with the wedding- 
torch, that he might, by the roaring flames, the better sing the Fall 
of Troy. He was a gazelle poet, of whom I would speak with 
pathos ; but I can only smile at the modern Pythagorean, who in the 
Rome of the present day, meanly, and soberly and anxiously sneaks 
among the paths of friendship, his blonde countenance simply dis- 
gusting the loveless youths, and who afterwards, by the light of # a 
wretched oil lamp, sighs forth his gazelles. From such a point of 
view, it is interesting to compare the poems of Platen with those "of 
Petronius. In the latter we see straight-forward, antique, plastic, 
heathen nakedness ; but Count Platen, despite his boasting of the 
classic style, rather treats his subject in a manner which is altogether 
romantic, deeply yearning, and priestlike — nay, and I must add, even 
hypocritical. For the Count frequently masks himself in pious feel- 
ings, he evades every indication of the sex ; only the initiated are to 
understand his meaning; he believes that he has sufficiently blinded 
the multitude when he occasionally lets the word " friend" slip out ; 
and it is with him as with the ostrich, which believes itself to be well 
enough hidden when its head is stuck in the sand, although the tail 
\s plainly visible. Our illustrious and noble bird would have done 
better had he hidden his tail, and shown us his head more openly. In 
fact^ he is rather a man of tail than a man of " head." The name 
man is altogether unsuitable for him ; his love has a passive, Pytha- 
gorean character ; he is a pathic in his poems ; he is a woman, and 
one, at that, who has a lewd passion for her own sex — in fact, a male 
tribade. This anxious, pliant, submissive nature, glides through all his 
love-poems ; he is always finding some new "friend in beauty ;" in all 
his verses we discover polyandria, and even when he sentimalises — 

" Thou lov'st in silence — would that it had bound me I 
That I had only cast on thee my glances ! 
Had I, with words, ne'er made the first advauces, 
These anxious sorrows had not twined around me. 
And yet I would not be as love first found me ! 
Woe to the day which coldly ends its chances ! 
'Tis from that realm where, lost in raptured trances, 
Blest angels mingle." 

— we at once think of the angels who came to Lot, the son of Hakan, 
and who only escape d with difficulty and effort the most rapturous 
trances, as we read in the books of Moses, where, unfortunately, the 
sonnets and gazelles which were sung before Lot's door, are not 
recorded. Everywhere, in Platen's poems, we see the ostrich, which 
only hides its head, the vain, weak bird, which has the most beautiful 



— 356 — 

plumage, and yet cannot fly; and which, ever quarrelsome, stumbles 
along over the polemic sandy desert of literature. With his fine 
feathers, without the power to soar, with his fine verse, without 
poetic flight, he is the very opposite to that eagle of song who, with 
less brilliant wings, still rises to the sun. I must return to my old 
refrain ; Count Platen is no poet. 

* Two things are required of every poet ; that there should be 
natural tones in his lyric poems, and characters in his epic or dra- 
matic productions. If he cannot legitimately establish himself on 
these points, he must lose his title as poet, although all his other 
family-papers and diplomas of nobility are in perfect order. I have 
no doubt that the last is the case with Count Platen, and I am 
convinced that he would only deign a smile of pityiug sorrow to any 
one who should attempt to cast doubt on his title as Count. But 
dare to so much as level a couplet at his poetic title, and he will at 
once set himself down and publish five act satires against you. The 
want of natural chords in the poems of the Count is the more touch- 
ing from the fact that he lives in an age when he dare not so much 
as name his real feelings, when the curreut morality which is so 
directly opposed to his love, even forbids him to openly express his 
sorrows, and when he must anxiously and painfully disguise every 
sentiment for fear of offending by so much as a single syllable the 
ear of the public as well as that of the " disdainful and beautiful 
one." This constant fear suppresses every natural chord in him— it 
condemns him to metrically labor away at the feelings of other poets 
which have already passed muster as acceptable, and which must of 
necessity be used to cloak his own conceptions. It may be that 
wrong is done him when, those who understand such unfortunate 
situations assert that Count Platen is desirous of showing himself 
as Count in poetry and of holding in it to his nobility, and that he 
consequently only expresses the feelings of such well-known families 
as have their sixty-four descents. Had he lived in the days of the 
Eoman Pythagoras, it may be that he would have expressed these 
feelings more openly and perhaps have passed for a true poet. Then 
natural chords at least would not have been missed in his lyric 
poems — albeit the want of characters in his dramas must ever have 
remained, at least until he changed his moral nature and became an 
altogether different man. The forms of which I speak are those 
independent creatures which spring perfect and fully armed from the 
creative power of the poet, as Pallas Athene sprang from the head 
of Kronion — living dream-forms whose mystic birth stands, far more 






— 357 — 

thaw is imagined, in active relation with the mental and moral nature 
of the poet — a spiritual production denied to the one who, a mere 
fruitless creature, vanishes gazelle-like in his windy weakness. 

These are, however, after all, only the private opinions of a poet 
and their importance depends on the degree of credit which is ac- 
corded them. But I cannot avoid mentioning that Count Platen 
has often assured the public that in days as yet to come he will com- 
pose the most remarkable poetry of which no one has as yet even a 
presentiment, yes, and that he will publish Iliads and Oclyssies and 
classic tragedies, and similar immortally colossal poems, after he has 
toiled so, or so many lustrums. Reader, you have perhaps read 
some of these outpourings of self-consciousness in his laboriously 
filed verses, and the promise of such a glorious future was probably 
the pleasanter to you, when the Count at the same time represented 
all the cotemporary German poets, with the exception of the aged 
Goethe, as a set of nasty wretches who only stood in his way on the 
path to immortality, and who were so devoid of shame as to pluck 
the laurels and the praise which of right belonged to him alone. 

I will pass over what I heard in Munich on this theme , but for 
the sake of chronology I must mention that it was at this time that 
the King of Bavaria announced his intention of bestowing on some 
German poet a pension without any attendant official duties ; an 
unusual example which might have the happiest result on the entire 
literature of Germany. I was told — 

But I will not quit my theme ; I spoke of the vain boasting of 
Count Platen, who continually cried : — I am the poet, the poet of 
poets ! I shall yet write Iliads and Odyssies, &c, &c. I know not 
what the public thinks of such boasting but I know right well what 
a poet thinks of them — that is to say, a true poet who has felt the 
ashamed sweetness and the secret trembling of poetry, and who like 
a happy page who enjoys the secret favors of a princess, most 
assuredly will not boast of them in the public market place. 

Not unfrequently has the Count for thus puffing himself up, been 
soundly taken down, yet like FalstafF he always knew how to excuse 
himself. He has for such excuses a useful talent which is peculiarly 
his own and one deserving special mention. It lies in this that 
Count Platen who is familiar with every failing in his own breast is 
also quick at recognizing the faintest trace of kindred faults in any 
great man, and is not less prompt on the strength of this elective 
affinity of vice to institute a comparison between the other and him- 
self. Thus, for instance, having observed that Shakespeare's son- 



— 358 — 

nets are addressed to a young man and not to a woman, he at once 
praises Shakespeake for choosing so rationally, compares himself 
with him — and that is all which he has to say of him. One might 
negatively write an apology for Count Platen and assert that he 
has not as yet developed this or that failing because he has not as 
yet compared himself with this or that great man who has been 
reputed guilty of them. Most genial, however, and amazing did he 
show himself in the choice of one in whose life he discovered speeches 
void of modesty, and by whose example he fain would lend a color 
to his own boasting. In fact, the words of this man as establishing 
such a point, have not been cited — for it was none other than Jesus 
Christ himself, who has hitherto always been taken for the pattern 
of meekness and humility. Christ once boasted ! the most humble 
of mankind, and the more humble — since he was the divinest ? Yes 
— what has escaped all theologians was discovered by Count Platen, 
for he insinuates that Christ, when he stood before Pilate, was not 
humble nor did he answer humbly, for when the latter asked him 
" Art thou the King of the Jews ?" he answered, " Thou sayest it." 
And so says he, the Count Platen : "I am he, I am the Poet !" — 
What the hate of one who scorned Christ never as yet effected, 
was brought to pass by the exegesis of self-enamored vanity. 

As we know what we should think when any one thus cries with- 
out intermission i " I am the Poet !" so we also understand the 
affinity which it has to the immensely remarkable poems which the 
Count, when he has attained due ripeness, intends to write, and 
which are to surpass in such an unheard of manner all his previous 
performances. We know well enough that the later works of a true 
poet are no more superior to his first than the later children to 
which a woman gives birth are superior to her first born — although 
the bearing them is easier. The lioness does not first bring forth a 
puppy, then a hare, then a hound and finally a lion. Madame 
Goethe, at her first birth brought forth her young lion, and he in 
turn at the first throw, gave us his lion of Berlichingen. Even so 
did Schiller bring forth his " Robbers," whose claws at once 
showed the lion breed. At a later date came the polish and re- 
finement and finish in the "Natural Daughter " and the " Bride of 
Messina." It was not thus with Count Platen, who began with 
anxious and elaborate art, and of whom the poet sings : — 

" Thou who from naught so lightly did'st advance, 
With thy smooth licked and lackered countenance, 
Like some toy-puppet neatly carved from cork." 






— 359 — 

"Yet should I speak out the very thought of my soul, I would con- 
fess that I by no means regard Count Platen as the extraordinary 
fool which one would take him to be from Ins boasting and incessant 
burning of incense before his own shrine. A little folly, it is well 
known, always accompanies poetry, but it would be terrible if 
Nature should burden a single man with such an incredible quantity 
of folly as would suffice for a hundred poets, and give him therewith 
such an insignificant dose of poetry. I have reason to suspect that 
the Count does not believe in his own boasting, and that he, poverty- 
stricken in life as in literature, is compelled in literature as in life by 
the needs of the instant, to be his own self-praising Kuefiano. 
Hence the phenomena of which one might say that they have 
rather a psychological than an aesthetic interest ; hence the joint 
company of the* most lamentable somnambulism of the soul and 
affected excess of pride, hence the miserable little deeds with a 
speedy death and the threatened big deeds with then future immor- 
tality ; hence the high flashing beggarly pride, and the languishing 
slavish submissiveness ; hence the unceasing cry that " Cotta lets 
him starve," aud again that " Cotta lets him starve," hence the 
paroxysms of Catholicism, &c, &c. 

Whether the Count is in earnest with all his Catholicism, is to mo 
a matter of doubt. Nor do I know whether he has become especially 
Catholic, like certain of his high-born friends. That he intended to 
do so, first came to my knowledge from the public papers, wherein 
it was even stated that Count Platen wa,s about to become a monk 
and retire to a monastery. Scandal-mongers were of the opinion, 
that the vows of poverty and of abstinence from women would not, in 
his case, present any remarkable difficulties. Of course when this 
news was heard in Munich, the pious chimes rang loudly in the 
hearts of his friends. His poems were praised with Kyrie Eleison 
and Hallelujah in the priestly papers; and, indeed, the holy disciples 
of coelibacy must have greatly rejoiced over those poems in which 
all are so strongly recommended to refrain from contact with the 
female sex. My poems unfortunately have a directly opposite ten- 
dency, and it might indeed concern me greatly, but ought not to 
astonish me, that priests and singers of boys are not interested in 
them. And quite as little was I astonished when the day before 
my departure for Italy, I learned from my friend, Doctor Kolb, that 
Count Platen was very inimically disposed towards me, and that 
he had already prepared my utter annihilation in a comedy, entitled 
King (Edijpus, which in Augsburg had got into the hands of certain 



— 360 — 

princes and counts, whose names I have either forgotten or shall 
forget. Others also told me that Count Platen hated me, assuming 
the position of an enemy towards me; — and I would much prefer to 
have it reported that Count Platen hated me to my face, than that 
he loved me behind my back. As for the holy men whose holy 
hatred burst out at the same time against me, and which was in- 
spired, not only by my anti-ccelibatic poems, but also by the Political 
Annals which I then published, it is evident enough that I could 
only gain when it became evident enough that I was none of their 
party. And when I here intimate that nothing good is said of them, 
it does not follow that I speak evil of them. I am even of the 
opinion that they, purely out of love for what is good, seek to 
weaken the words of the Evil One by pious deception, and by slan- 
der pleasing to the Lord. Those good people who, in Munich, 
presented themselves publicly as a congregation, have been foolishly 
honoured with the title of Jesuits. They are in faith no Jesuits, or 
they would have seen for example that of all men, I — one of the bad — 
least understand the literary alchemic art, by which, as in a mental 
mint, 1 strike ducats out of my enemies, and that in such a manner, that 
I retain the ducats while my foes get the blows. They would have 
seen, too, that such blows, with their impressions, lose nothing of 
their value, even when the name of the mint-master is worn away ; 
and that a wretched criminal does not feel the lash the less severely, 
though the hangman who lays it on be declared dishonourable. But 
— and this is the chief point — they would have seen that a slight 
prepossession for the anti-aristocratic Voss, and a few merry vergings 
towards jokes on the Virgin Mary,* for which they pelted me with 
filth and stupidity, did not proceed from any anti-catholic zeal. In 
truth they are no Jesuits, but only mixtures of filth and of stupidity 
whom I am no more capable of hating, than I do a manure wagon 
and the oxen which draw it, and who, with all their efforts, only 
reach the very opposite of what they intended, and can only bring 
me to this point, that I show them how Protestant I am ; that I 
exercise my good Protectant right to its fullest extent, and swing 
around the good Protestant battle-axe with a right good will. To 
win over the multitude, they may have the old women's tales of my 
unbelief repeated by their poet laureate as much as they please — but 
by the well-known blows they shall recognise the fellow-believer with 
Luther, Lessing and Yoss. Of course I could not swing the old 
axe with the earnestness of these heroes — for I burst into laughter 

* Muttergotteswitze. 



- 861 — 

at the sight of such enemies, and I have a bit of the Eulenspiegel 
nature in me, and love a seasoning of jokes — and yet I would not 
rap those manure oxen less soundly although I beforehand wreathe 
my axe with smiling flowers. 

But I will not wander from my subject. I believe that it was 
about the time in question that the King of Bavaria, from the motives 
alluded to, gave to Count Platen an annual pension of six hundred 
florins, and that indeed, not from the public treasury, but from his 
own royal private purse, this being requested by the Count as an 
especial favor. I mention this circumstance, trifling as it seem, 
(since it characterizes the caste of the Count,) for the benefit of the 
investigator into the secrets of nature, and who perhaps studies the 
aristocracy. Every thing is of importance to science, and let him 
who would reproach me for devoting myself too seriously to Count 
Platen, go to Paris, and see with what care the accurate, exquisite 
Quvier, in his lectures, describes the filthiest insect even to the 
minutest particulars. I even regret that I cannot more accurately 
determine the date of those six hundred and forty florins ; but this 
much I know that it was subsequent to the composition of " King 
(EJipus" and that the play would not have been so biting if its 
author had had something more to bite. 

It was in North Germany, where I was suddenly called by the 
death of my father, that I first received the monstrous creation 
which had finally crept from the great egg over which our beautifully 
plumed ostrich had so long brooded, and which had been greeted 
long in advance by the night-owls of the congregation with pious 
croaking, and by the noble peacocks with joyful threading of plumes. 
It was to be at least a destroying basilisk — dear reader, do you 
know what the legend of the basilisk is ? People say, that when a 
male bird lays an egg after the manner of the female, that a poison- 
ous creature is hatched from it whose breath poisons the air, and 
which can only be destroyed by holding a mirror before it, in which 
case it dies from terror at its own ugliness. 

Sacred sorrows which I would not profane, first permitted me, two 
months later, when visiting the watering place Helgoland, to read 
" King (Edipus" and there, raised to a lofty state of mind by the 
continual aspect of the great, bold sea ; the petty narrow thoughts 
and the literary botching of the high-born writer, were to me visible 
enough. I saw him at length in that master-work exactly as he is, 
with all his blooming decay, all his copiousness of want of spirit, 
all his vain imaginings without imagination, a writer, forced without 

31 



— 362 — 

force, piqued without being piguanf, a dry watery soul, a dismal de- 
bauchee. This troubadour of misery, weakened in body and in 
soul, sought to imitate the most powerful, the richest in fancy and 
most brilliant poets of the young Grecian world ! Nothing is really 
more repulsive than this cramp-racked inability which would fain 
puff itself up into the likeness of bold strength, these wearily col- 
lected invectives, foul with the mouldiness of ancient spite, and this 
painfully labored imitation of delirious rapture, trembling through- 
out at syllables and trifles. As a matter of course there is nowhere 
in the Count's work the trace of an idea of a deep world-annihilation 
such as lies darkling at the base of every Aristophanic comedy, and 
from which the latter shoots like a phantastic ironic magic tree 
rich in the blooming garniture of flowers of thought, bearing amid its 
branches nests of singing nightingales and capering apes. Such an 
idea, with the death merriment and the fireworks of destruction 
which it involves, cannot of course be anticipated from the poor 
Count. The central point, the first and last idea, ground and aim 
of his so called comedy, consists, as in the " Mysterious and Terrible 
Fork" of petty literary managing ; the poor Count indeed could 
only imitate a few of the external traits of Aeistophanes — the* 
dainty verses and the vulgar words. I say vulgar words, not wish- 
ing to use any vulgar expression myself. Like a brawling woman, 
he casts whole flower-pots of abuse on the heads of the German 
poets. I heartily forgive the Count his spite, but he should have 
guarded against a few oversights. He should at least have honored 
our sex, since we are not women but men and consequently belong 
to a sex which is in his opinion the fair sex, and which he so dearly 
loves. In this he manifests a lack of delicacy, and many a youth 
will in consequence doubt the sincerity of his homage, since every 
one must feel that he who loves truly, honours the whole sex. The 
singer Feauenlob was undoubtedly never rude to a lady and a 
Platen should show more regard towards men. But the indelicate 
wretch ! he tells the public without reserve that we poets in North 
Germany have all " the itch, giving us cause, alas ! to use a salve, in 
filthy scent peculiarly rich." The rhyme is good. But he handles 
Immeemann the most rudely. In the very beginning of his poem he 
makes the poet do something which I dare not describe, behind a 
screen, and yet which cannot be disproved. I even deem it very 
probable that Immeemann has more than once done such things. 
But it is characteristic of the imagination of Count Platen that it 
always induces him to attack his enemies a posteriori. He did not 



— 363 — 

even spare Houwald, that good soul, soft-hearted as a maiden — ah ! 
perhaps it is on account of this gentle womanlikeness, that a 
Platen hates him. Muellner, whom he, as he says, "long since by 
real wit laid low deprived of force," rises again like a dead man from 
the grave. Child and child's child are not spared in their rights. 
Raupach is a Jew — 

" The small Jew canker-worm — 

Who now as Raupach holds so high his nose."* 

" Who scrawls tragedies in sickly, drunken headaches." Far worse 
does it fare with the " Baptized Heine." Yes, yes, reader, you are not 
mistaken, it is I of whom he speaks, and in King (Edipus you may 
read, how I am a real Jew; how I, after writing love-songs for a few 
hours sit me down and clip ducats ; how I on the Sabbath higgle and 
trade with some long-bearded Moses and sing the Talmud; how I on 
Easter night slay a Christian youth, and out of malice choose some 
unfortunate writer for the purpose — no, dear reader, I will not tell you 
lies, such admirably painted pictures are not to be found in King 
(E lipus, and the fact that they are not there, is the very thing which 
I blame. Count Platen has sometimes the best subjects and does 
not know how to treat them. If he had only been gifted with a 
little more imagination, he would have shown me up at least as a 
secret pawn-broker, and what comic scenes he might then have 
sketched ! It really vexes me when I see how the poor Count 
suffers every opportunity to be witty to escape him. How gloriously 
he could have represented Raupach as a tragedy-Rothschild, from 
whom the royal theatres get their loans ! By slightly modifying the 
plot of the fable, he might have made far better use of (Edipus him- 
self, the hero of his play. Instead of the latter murdering his father 
Laius, and marrying his mother Jocasta, he ought, on the contrary, 
to have so arranged it, that (Edipus should murder his mother and 
marry his father. A Platen in such a poem must have succeeded 
wonderfully in the dramatic (pe) drastic, his own natural feelings 
would have stood him in stead of any effort ; like a nightingale, he 
need only have sung the throbbings of his own breast, and he would 
have brought out a piece which, if the dead dear gazelling IrFLANDf 
still lived, would beyond question, be ~iX once studied in Berlin, and 
played in private theatres. I can imagine nothing more perfect than 

* Das Jiidchen Raupel, 

Das jetzt als Raupach tragi so hoch die Nape. 
f Der gazelige Iffla.nd. Gazelle +8011^ = gaselig 



— 364: — 

the actor Wurm in the performance of such an (Edipus. He would 
surpass himself. Again, I do not find it politic in the Count, that 
he assures us in his comedies that he has " real wit." Or is he work- 
ing to bring about the startling and unprecedented effect as a coup 
de theatre, of making the public continually expect wit, which after 
all will not appear ? Or does he wish to encourage the public to 
look for the real secret wit in the play, the whole affair being a 
game at blind-man's buff, in which the Platknic wit is so shrewd as 
not to suffer itself to be caught ? It is probably for this reason that 
the public, which is accustomed to laugh at comedies, is so solemn 
and sad over the Platen pieces, in vain it hunts for the hidden wit 
and cannot find it, in vain the hidden wit squeaks out "here I am," 
and again more clearly " here I am, here T am indeed !" — all is of no 
avail, the public is dumb and makes a solemn face. But I who 
know where the joke really lies, have laughed from my heart as I 
detected the meaning of '* the count-like imperious poet, who veils 
himself in an aristocratic nimbus, who boasts that every breath 
which passes his teeth is a crushing to fragments," and who says to 
all the German poets : 

" Yes, like to Nero I would ye had but one head, 
That by one blow of wit I might decapitate it." 

The verse is incorrect. But the hidden joke consists in this ; that 
the Count really wishes that we were all out and out Neros, and he, 
on the contrary our single dear friend, Pythagoras. 

Perhaps I will, for the benefit of the Count, yet praise many a 
hidden jest of his up into notice, but since he in his " King (Edipus" 
has touched me on my tenderest point — for what can be dearer to 
me than my Christianity ? — it should not be blamed in me if I, yield- 
ing to human weakness honor the (Edipus, this " great deed in 
words," less fervently than the earlier works of its composer. 

Meanwhile, true merit never misses its reward, and the author of 
the (EJipus will prove to be no exception to the rule, though he has 
here as everywhere yielded entirely to the interest of his noble and 
spiritual bum-bailiffs.* Aye, there is a very old tradition among 
the races of the East and of the West that every good or bad deed 
has its direct consequences for the doer. And the day will come 
when they will come — get ready, I beg you reader, for a flourish of 
the pathetic and the terrible combined — the day will come when 
they will rise from Tartarus — " the Eumenides," the terrible daugh- 

* Hintersassen. 



— 365 — 

tens of Night. By the Styx ! — an:, oy this oath the gods never 
swore falsely — the day will come when they will appear, the gloomy, 
primsevally just sisters, and they will appear with countenances 
serpent-locked and glowing with rage, with the same scourges of 
snakes with which they once scourged Orestes, the unnatural sinner 
who murdered his mother, the Tyndaridean ClytzEunestra. It may 
be that even now the Count hears the serpent's hiss — I beg you, 
reader, just at this instant to think of the Wolf's Ravine and the 
Samiel music — perhaps even now the secret shudder of the sinner 
seizes on the Count, heaven grows dark, night birds cry, distant 
thunders roll, lightning flashes, there is a smell of colophonium, — 
woe ! woe ! the illustrious ancestors rise from their graves, they cry 
three and four times "woe ! woe !" over their wretched descendant, 
they conjure him to don their breeches of iron mail to protect him- 
self from the terrible lashes — for the Eumenides intend slashing him 
with them — the serpents of the scourge will ironically solace them- 
selves with him, and like the lascivious King Rodrigo, when he was 
shut in the Tower of Serpents, the poor Count will at last whimper 
and wail 

" Ah ! they're biting, ah ! they're biting 
That with which I chiefly sinned!" 

Be not alarmed, dear reader — 'tis all a joke ! These terrible 
Eumenides are nothing but a merry comedy, which I, after a few 
lustrums, intend writing under this title, and the tragic verses which 
just now frightened you so much, are to be found in the jolliest book 
in the world, in Don Quixotte de la Mancha, where an old respecta- 
ble lady in waiting recites them before all the court. I see that 
you're smiling again. Let us take leave of each other merry and 
laughing ! If this last chapter is tiresome it is ow T ing to the 
subject ; besides it was written rather for profit thau for pleasure, 
and if I have succeeded in making a new fool fit for use in literature, 
the Father-Land owes me thanks. I have made a field capable of 
cultivation on which more gifted authors will sow and harvest. The 
modest consciousness of this merit is my best reward. To such 
kings as are desirous of presenting me, over and above this, witli 
snuff boxes for my deserts, I would remark that the book firm of 
<; HoFFiMANN and Campe" in Hamburgh, are authorized to receive 
any thing of the sort on my account. 

Written in the latter part of the autumn of 1829. 

31* 



— 366 — 
THE CITY OF LUCCA. 



" The City of Lucca," which is connected with " The Baths of 
Lucca" and which was written at the same time, is not given here 
by any means as a picture by itself, but as the conclusion of a period 
of life corresponding with that of one of the world's. 



CHAPTER I. 



Nature around us acts upon Man — why not Man upon the Nature 
which encircles him ? In Italy she is passionate like the people who 
live there ; with us in Germany she is more solemn, reflective and 
patient. "Was there once a time when Nature had like Man a 
deeper life ? The force of soul in Okpheus, says the legend, could 
move trees and rocks by his inspired rhymes. Could the like be 
done now ? Man and nature have become phlegmatic, and stare 
gaping at each other. A royal Prussian poet will never, with 
the chords of his harp, set the Tempelower Hill or the Berlin 
lindens to dancing. 

Nature has also her history, and it is an altogether different 
Natural History from that which is taught in schools. Let one 
of those grey old lizards which have dwelt for centuries in the 
rocky crevices of the Appenines be appointed as an altogether 
extraordinary Professor* at one of our Universities, and we should 
learn from him some very extraordinary things. But the pride of 
certain gentlemen of the legal faculty would rebel against such an 
appointment. One of them already cherishes a secret jealousy of 
the poor puppy Fido Savant, fearing lest he may displace him in 
erudite fetching and carrying. 

* An " extraordinary Professor" at a German University is not, as might be supposed, 
from the name, one preeminent in dignity or distinguished by very remarkable qualify 
cations. He is on the contrary a sort of brevetted Professor, awaiting his promotion to » 
regular appointment in ordinary.— [Note by Translator.} 



— 367 — 

The lizards, with their cunning little tails and bright crafty eyes, 
have told me wonderful things as I clambered along among the cliffs 
of the Appenines. Truly there are things between heaven and earth 
which not only our philosophers but even our commonest blockheads 
have not comprehended. 

The lizards have told me that there is a legend among the stones 
that God will yet become a stone to redeem them from their torpid 
motionless condition. One old lizard was however of the opinion 
that this stone-incarnation will not take place until God shall have 
changed himself into every variety of animal and plant and have 
redeemed them. 

But few stones have feeling and they only breathe in the moon- 
light. But these few which realize their condition are fearfully 
miserable? The trees are better off — they can weep. But animals 
are the most favored, for they can speak, each after its manner, and 
Man the best of all. At some future time, after all the world has 
been redeemed, then all created things will speak as in those prim- 
eval times of which poets sing. 

The lizards are an ironic race, and love to quiz other animals. 
But they were so meek and submissive to me, and sighed with such 
honorable earnestness as they told me stories of Atlantis, which 
I some day will write out for the pleasure and profit of the world. 
Et went so to my very soul among those little creatures who guard 
the secret annals of Nature. Are they perhaps enchanted families 
of priests, like those of ancient Egypt, who, prying into the secrets 
of Nature dwelt amid labrynthine rocky grottoes ? And we see 
on their little heads, bodies and tails, just such wondrous charac- 
ters and signs, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphic caps and garments 
of the hierophants. 

My little friends also taught me a language of signs, by means of 
which I could converse with silent Nature. This often cheered my 
soul, especially towards evening, when the mountains were veiled in 
fearful pleasant shadows, and the water-falls roared, and every plant 
sent forth its perfume, and hurried lightnings twitched hither and 
thither, — 

Nature ! thou dumb maiden ! — well do I understand thy sum- 
mer lightning, that vain effort at speech which convulses thy lovely 
countenance, and thou movest me so deeply that I weep. But then 
thou understandest me also, and thou art glad and smilest on me 
with thy golden eyes. Beautiful one, I understand thy stars and 
thou understandest my tears ! 



368 



CHAPTER II. 

" Nothing in the world will go backwards," said an old lizard to 
me. " Every thing pushes onwards and finally there will be a grand 
advance in all Nature. The stones will become plants, the plants 
animals, the animals human beings, and human beings Gods." 

" But," I cried, " what will become of those good folks, the poor 
old Gods ?" 

" That will all arrange itself, good friend," replied he. "Probably 
they will abdicate, or be placed in some honorable way or other on 
the retired list." 

I learned many another secret from my hieroglyph-skinned natural 
philosopher ; but I gave him my word of honor to reveal nothing. 
I know no more than Schelling and Hegel. 

" What do you think of these two ?" once inquired of me the old 
lizard with a scornful smile, as I chanced to mention their names. 

" When we reflect," I replied, "that they are merely men and not 
lizards, we should be amazed at their knowledge. At bottom they 
teach one and the same doctrine, the Philosophy of Identity which 
you so well know ; but differ in their manner of setting it forth. 
When Hegel sets forth the principles of his philosophy, one imag- 
ines that he sees those neat figures which an expert schoolmaster 
knows how to form by an artistic combination of all manner of num- 
bers,' so that a common observer only sees in them the superficial — 
the house or boat or absolute soldier formed from the figures, while 
a reflecting school -boy rather sees in the picture the solution of a 
deep problem in arithmetic. But what Schelling sets forth 
reminds us of those Indian images of beasts which are formed them- 
selves by bold combinations from other beasts, serpents, birds, ele- 
phants and similar material. This sort of representation is far 
more agreeable, cheerful, and causes warmer throbbings of the heart. 
All lives in it, while the abstract Hegelian ciphers stare at us, on 
the contrary, so gray, so cold and dead." 

" Good, good !" replied the old lizard. " I see what you mean ; 
but tell me, have these philosophers many auditors ?" 

I explained to him how in the learned caravanserai at Berlin the 
" camels" assemble around the fountain of Hegelian wisdom, kneel 
down to be loaded with precious skins, and then wend their way ou 
through the sandy deserts of the Mark. I further described to him 



— 369 — 

how the modern Athenians crowded to the well of the spiritual 
wisdom of Schelling as though it were the best of beer, the lush of 
life, the swizzle of immortality. — 

The little natural philosopher paled with all the yellowness of 
envy as he heard that his colleagues had such a run of customers 
and he vexedly asked, " Which of the two do you regard as the 
greater ?" " That," I replied, " is as difficult to answer as though 
you had inquired of me if the Schechner were greater than the 
Sonntag.and I think — " 

" Think!" cried the lizard, in a sharp aristocratic tone indicating 
the very intensity of slight — " think I who among you thinks ? My 
wise gentleman, for some three thousand years I have devoted myself 
to investigating the spiritual functions of animals, with especial 
regard to men, monkeys and snakes as objects of study. I have 
expended as much untiring industry on these curious beings as 
Ltonnet on caterpillars, and as a result of all my observations, 
experiments and anatomical comparisons, I can plainly assure you 
that no human being thinks, only once in a while something occurs 
to a man, or comes into his head, and these altogether unintentional 
accidents they call thoughts, while the stringing them together they 
call thinking. But in my name you may deny it ; no man thinks, no 
philosopher thinks, neither Schelling nor Hegel thinks, and as for 
all their philosophy it is empty air and water like the clouds of 
Heaven. I have seen myriads of such clouds, proud and confident, 
sweeping their course above me, and the next morning's sun 
dissolved them again into their primaeval nothingness ; — there is 
but one true philosophy, and that is written in eternal hieroglyphs 
on my own tail." 

With these words, which were spoken with disdainful pathos, the 
old lizard turned his back on me, and as he slowly wiggled away, I 
saw on him the most singular characters, which in variegated signi- 
ficance spread at length over his entire tail. 



CHAPTER III. 



The dialogue detailed in the previous chapter took place between 
the Baths of Lucca and the city of that name, Hot far from the great 
chestnut tree, whose wild green twigs overshadow the brook, and 
in the vicinity of an old white bearded goat who dwelt there as a 



— 370 — 

hermit. I was on the way to Lucca, to visit Feancesca and Matilda, 
whom I was to meet there as agreed on eight days before. But I 
had went thither in vain the first time, and now I was once more on 
the road. I went on foot through beautiful mountain tracts and 
groves, where the gold oranges, like day stars shone out from the 
dark green, and where garlands of grape-vines in festal drapery 
spread along for leagues. The whole country is there as garden-like 
and adorned as the rural scenes depicted in our theatres, even the 
peasants resembling those gay figures which delight us as a sort of 
singing, smiling and dancing stage ornament. No Philistine faces, 
anywhere. And if there are Philistines here, they are at least Italian 
orange-Philistines and not the plump, heavy German potato-Philis- 
tines. The people are picturesque and ideal as their country, and 
every man among them has such an individual expression of counte- 
nance, and knows how to set forth his personality in gestures, fold 
of the cloak, and, if needful in ready handling of his knife. With us 
on the contrary, one sees nothing but mere men with universally 
similar countenances ; when twelve of them are together they make 
a round dozen, and if any one attacks them they call for the police. 

I was struck in the Luccan district, as in other parts of Tuscany, 
with the great felt hats with long waving ostrich plumes worn by 
the women ; and even the girls who plaited straw had these heavy 
coverings for the head. The men on the contrary generally wear a 
light straw hat, and young fellows receive them as presents from 
girls who have braided with them their love thoughts, and it may be 
many a sigh besides. So sat Francesca once among the girls and 
flowers of the Yal d'Arno, weaving a hat for her Caro Cecco, and 
kissing every straw as she took it, trilling at times her " Occhie, 
Stelle mortale ;" — the curly-locked head which afterwards wore it so 
prettily is now tonsured, and the hat itself hangs, old and worn-out, 
in the corner of a gloomy abbe's-cell in Bologna. 

I am one of that class who are always taking shorter cuts than 
those given by the regular highway, and who in consequence are 
often bewildered in narrow, woody and rocky paths. That happened 
to me during my walk to Lucca, and I was beyond question twice 
as long on the journey as any ordinary high-road traveller would 
have been. A sparrow, of whom I inquired the way, chirped and 
chirped and could give me no correct information. Perhaps he did 
not know himself. The butterflies and dragon-flies who sat on great 
flower-bells, would not throw me a word, fluttering away, even before 
my question was asked, and the flowers shook their soundless bell- 



— 371 — 

heads. Often the wild myrtles awakened me, tittering with delicate 
voices from afar. Then I hurriedly climbed the highest crags, and 
cried, " Ye clouds of heaven ! sailors of the air ! which is the way to 
Francesca ? Is she in Lucca ? Tell me what she does ? What is 
she dancing ? Tell me all, and when ye have told me, tell me it 
once again !" 

In such excesses of folly it was natural enough that a solemn 
eagle, wakened by my cry from his solitary dreams, should have 
gazed on me with contemptuous displeasure. But I willingly for- 
give him ; for he had never seen Francesca, and could in conse- 
quence sit so sublimely on his firm rock, and gaze so free of soul 
at heaven, or stare with such impertinent calmness down on me. 
Such an eagle has such an insupportably proud glance, and looks 
at one as though he would say, " What sort of a bird art thou ?" 
Knowest thou not that I am as much of a king as I was in those 
heroic days when I bore Jupiter's thunders and adorned Napo- 
leon's banners ? Art thou a learned parrot who hast learned 
the old songs all by heart and pedantically repeats them ? Or a 
sulky turtle-dove who feels beautifully and cooes miserably ? Or an 
almanac nightingale ?* Or a gander who has seen better days and 
whose ancestors saved the capitol? Or an altogether servile farm- 
yard cock, around whose neck, out of irony, men hang my image in 
miniature, the emblem of bold flight, and who for that reason spreads 
himself and struts as though he himself were a veritable eagle ? But 
you know, reader, how little cause I have to feel injured when an 
eagle thinks so of me. I believe that the glance which I cast at 
him was even prouder than his own, and if he took the trouble to 
inquire of the first laurel in his way he now knows who I am. 

I had really lost my way in the mountains as the twilight shadows 
began to fall, as the forest songs grew silent and as the trees rustled 
more solemnly. A sublime tranquillity and an inexpressible joy 
swept like the breath of God through the changed silence. Here 
and there beautiful dark eyes gleamed up at me from the ground, 
disappearing in the same instant. Delicate whispers played with my 
heart, and invisible kisses merrily swept my cheek. The evening 
crimson hung over the hills like a royal mantle, and the last sun rays 
lit up their summits till they seemed like kings with gold crowns on 
their heads. And I stood like an Emperor of the World, among 
these crowned vassals who in silence did me homage. 

* Almanachsnachtigall. 



372 



CHAPTER IT. 

1 do not know if the monk who met me not far from Lucca is a 
pious man. But I know that his aged body hides, poor and bare, in 
a coarse gown year out and year in ; his torn sandals do not suffici- 
ently protect his feet when he climbs the rocks through bush and 
thorn, that he may, when far up there, console the sick or teach 
children to pray ; — and he is content, if any one, for his pains, puts a 
piece of bread in his bag and lets him have a little straw to sleep 
on. 

" Against that man I will write nothing," said I to myself: "When 
I am again at home in Germany, sitting at ease in my great arm- 
chair by a crackling stove, well fed and warm, and writing against 
Catholic priests — I will write nothing against that man — " 

To write against Catholic priests one must know their faces. But 
the original faces are only to be found in Italy. The German Catho- 
lic priests and monks are only bad imitations, often mere parodies of 
the Italian, and a comparison of the two would be like comparing 
Roman or Florentine pictures of the saints with the scare-crow, 
pious caricatures which came from the blockhead bourgeois pencil 
of some Nuremberg town-painter, or were born. of the blessed sim- 
plicity of some soul-borer who owes his dreary existence to the long, 
haired Christian new German school. 

The priests in Italy have long settled down into harmony with 
public opinion ; the people there are so accustomed to distinguish 
between clerical dignity and priests without dignity, that they can 
honor the one even when they despise the other. Even the contrast 
which the ideal duties and requirements of the spiritual condition 
form with the unconquerable demands of sensuous nature,— that 
infinitely old, eternal conflict between the spirit and matter — makes 
of the Italian priest a standing character of popular humor in satires, 
songs and novels. Similar phenomena are to be found all the world 
over where there is a like priestly rank, as for instance in Hindostan. 
In the comedies of this primaevally pious land, as we have remarked 
in the Sacontala, and find confirmed in the more recently translated 
Vasantasena, a Bramin always plays the comic part, or as we might 
say, the priest-harlequin, without the least disturbance of the rever- 
ence due to his sacrificial functions and his privileged holiness — as 
little in fact as an Italian would experience in hearing of mass or 



: 



— 373 — 

confessing to a priest whom he had found the day before tipsy in tbs 
mud of the street. In Germany it is different ; there, the Catholic 
priest will not only set forth his dignit) by his office, but also his 
office by his person ; and "because he perhaps in the beginning was 
in earnest with his calling, and subsequently found that his vows of 
chastity and of poverty conflicted somewhat with the old Adam, he 
will not publicly violate them, (particularly lest by so doing he might 
lay himself open to our friend Krug of Leipsig,) and so endeavors to 
assume at least the appearance of a holy life. Hence, sham-holiness, 
hypocrisy and the gloss of outside piety among German priests, 
while with the Italians the mask is more transparent, manifesting 
also a certain plump fat irony and a digestion of the world passing 
right comfortably. 

But what avail such general reflections ! They would be of but 
little use to you, dear reader, if you had a desire to write against 
the Catholic priesthood. To do this one should see with his own 
eyes the faces thereunto pertaining. Of a truth it is not enough to 
h*ve seen them in the royal opera-house in Berlin. The last head- 
in anager did his best to make the coronation-array in the Maid of 
Orleans true to life, to give his fellow-countrymen an accurate idea 
of a procession, and to show them priests of every color. But the 
most accurate costumes cannot supply the original countenances, 
and though an extra hundred thousand dollars should be fooled 
away for gold mitres, festooned surplices, embroidered chasubles, 
and similar stuff — still the cold reasoning Protestant noses which 
come protesting out from beneath the mitres aforesaid, the lean 
meditative legs which peep from under the white lace of the sur- 
plices, and the enlightened bellies, a world too wide for the chasu- 
bles — would all remind one of us that it was not Catholic clergymen 
but Berlin worldings which wander over the stage. 

I have often reflected whether the chief stage-manager would not 
have succeeded better and have brought more accurately before our 
eyes the idea of a procession if he had had the priestly parts played, 
not by the ordinary supernumeraries but by those Protestant clergy- 
men of the theological faculty who know how to preach so ortho- 
dcxically in the Church Journal, and from the pulpit, against 
" Reason," " worldly lusts," " Gesenius," and " Devil-dom." We 
ihould then have seen faces whose priestly stamp would have cor- 
responded far more illusively with the part. It is a well known 
observation that priests, all the world over, whether Rabbis, Muftis, 
Dominicans, Councillors of the Consistory, Popes, Bonzes, in short, 

, 32 



-- 374 — 

'he whole diplomatic corps of the Lord, have a certain family like 
Bess in their faces, such as we are accustomed to find in those who 
follow the same trade. Tailors in every quarter of the globe have 
weak legs, butchers and soldiers all have a fierce color and style and 
the Jews have their own peculiar honorable expression, not because 
they spring from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but because they are 
business men, and the Frankfort Christian shopman looks as much 
like a Frankfort Jewish shopman as one rotten egg looks like another. 
And the spiritual shop-people, such as get their living by the reli- 
gion-business, also acquire by it a resemblance in countenance. The 
Catholic priest does business like a clerk who has a place in an ex- 
tensive establishment. The firm of the Church, at whose head i-s 
the Pope, gives him a regular occupation and a regular salary; he 
works leisurely or lazily like every man who is not in business on 
his own account, and has many fellow-laborers, and who escapes 
observation among the multitude — only he has the credit of the 
house at heart, and still more its permanence, since by a bankruptcy 
he would lose his means of support. The Protestant clergyman is, 
on the contrary, everywhere himself principal, and he carries on the 
religion-business on his own account. He does not drive a whole- 
sale business like his Catholic colleague, but only a small retail 
trade, and as he represents his own interests, it would never do for 
him to be negligent. He must cry up his articles of faith to the 
people, depreciate those of his rivals, and like a real retailer, he 
stands in his small shop, full of professional envy of all the large 
houses, particularly of the great firm in Rome, which salaries so 
many thousand book-keepers and salesmen, and has its factories in 
every quarter of the globe. 

Each has of course its physiognomic separate effect, but these are 
not perceptible from the parquette. In their main features, the 
family likeness between Catholic and Protestant remains unchanged, 
and if the head-manager would pay down liberally to the gentlemen 
aforesaid, he could induce them to act their parts admirably — as they 
are in the habit of doing. Even their walk and gait would conduce 
to the illusion, though a sharp practised eye would readily detect 
certain shades of difference between it and that of Catholic priests 
and monks. 

A Catholic priest walks as if heaven belonged to him : a Protest- 
ant clergyman, on the contrary, goes about nn if he had taken a lease 
of it. 



375 — 



CHAPTEE Y. 



It was not till night that I reached the City of Lucca. 

How differently it had appeared to me the week before as I wan« 
Aered by day through the echoing deserted streets, and imagined 
myself transported to one of those enchanted cities of which my 
nurse had so often told me. Then the whole city was silent as the 
grave, all was- so pale and death-like ; the gleam of the sun played 
on the roofs like gold-leaf on the head of a corpse ; here and there 
from the windows of a mouldering house hung ivy tendrils like dried 
green tears, everywhere glimmering dreary and dismally petrifying 
death. The town seemed but the ghost of a town, a spectre of stone 
in broad daylight. I sought long and in vain for some trace of a 
living being. I can only remember that before an old Palazzo lay 
a beggar sleeping with outstretched open hand. I also remem- 
ber having seen above at the window of a blackened mouldering 
little house, a monk, whose red neck and plump shining pate, pro- 
truded right far from his brown gown, and near him a full-breasted 
stark-naked girl was visible, while below in the half-open house-door 
I saw entering, a little fellow in the black dress of an abbe, and who 
carried with both hands a mighty, full-bellied wine-flask. At the 
same instant there rang not far off a delicately ironic little bell, 
while in my memory tittered the novels of Messer Boccacio. But 
these chimes could not entirely drive away the strange shudder 
which ran through my soul. It held me the more ironly bound since 
the sun lit up so warmly and brightly the uncanny buildings ; and I 
marked well that ghosts are far more terrible when they cast aside 
the black mantle of night to show themselves in the clear light of 
noon. 

But what was my astonishment at the changed aspect of the city 
when I, eight days later, revisited Lucca. " What is that ?" I cried, 
as innumerable lights dazzled my eyes and a stream of human beings 
whirled through the streets. Has an entire race risen spectre-like 
from the grave to mock life with the maddest mummery ?" The 
lofty melancholy houses were bright with lamps, variegated carpets 
hung from every window, nearly hiding the crumbling grey walls, 
and above them peered out lovely female faces, so fresh, so blooming, 
that I well marked that it was Life herself celebrating her bridal feast 
*vith Death and who had invited the Beauty of Life as a ^uest. Yes, 



— 376 — 

it was such a living death feast, though I do know exactly how it 
was called in the calendar. At any rate it was the flaying day of 
some blessed martyr or other, for I afterwards saw a holy skull and 
several extra bones adorned with flowers and gems, carried around 
with bridal music. It was a fine procession. 

First of all went such Capuchins as were distinguished from the 
other monks by wearing long beards, and who formed as it were the 
sappers of this religious army. Then followed beardless Capuchins, 
among whom were many noble countenances, and even many a 
youthful and beautiful face, which looked well with the broad ton- 
sure, since the head seemed through it as if braided around with a 
neat garland of hair, and which came forth with the bare neck in 
admirable relief from the brown cowl. These were followed by 
cowls of other colors, black, white, yellow and gaily striped as well 
as down drawn triangular hats, in short, all those cloister costumes 
which the enterprize of our theatrical manager has made so familiar. 
After the monkish orders came the regular priests, with white shirts 
over black pantaloons, and wearing colored caps, who were in turn 
succeeded by still more aristocratic clergymen, wrapped in different 
colored silken garments and bearing on their heads a sort of high 
caps, which in all probability originated in Egypt, and with which 
we are familiar from the works of Dexox, from the " Magic Flute, H 
and from Belzoxi. These latter had faces which bore marks of long 
service, and appeared to form a sort of old guard. Last of all came 
the regular staff around a canopied throne, beneath which sat an 
old man with a still higher head-dress and in a still richer mantle 
whose extremity was borne after the manner of pages by two other 
old men clad in a similar manner. 

The first monks went with folded arms in solemn silence, but those 
with the high caps sang a most miserable and unhappy psalm, so 
nasally, so shufflingly, and so gruntingly, that I am perfectly con- 
vinced that if the Jews had formed the great mass 'bf the people, 
and if their religion had been the established religion, the aforesaid 
psalmodising would have been characterized with the name of 
" mauscheln."* Fortunately one could only half hear it, since 

* Mauschdn — a slang term signifying to speak like a Jew. It is derived from Mouse 
or Mauschd. an equally vulgar name for a Jew, corresponding to the old-fashioned 
English word " smouch." If, as is said. Mauschel is derived from Moses, the verb in 
question should strictly be rendered u to mosey." Unfortunately this word is already 
preoccupied in English with an entirely different meaning. To mosey, as the readeS 
doubtless knows, signifies to beat a rapid retreat, or, musically speaking, to perforas Sg 
Exodu'- in the time of Mo&e in Egitto. 



— 377 — 

there marched behind the procession with a full accompaniment of 
drums and fifes, several companies of troops, besides which there 
was on each side near the priests in their flowing robes, grenadiers 
going by two and two. There were almost as many soldiers as 
clergy, but it requires many bayonets now-a-days to keep up religion 
and even when the blessing is given cannon must roar significantly 
in the distance. 

When I see such a procession, in which clergymen amid military 
escort walk along so miserably and sorrowfully, it strikes painfully 
to my soul, and it seems to me as though I saw our Saviour him- 
self surrounded by lance-bearers and led to judgment. The stars at 
Lucca felt beyond question as I did, and as I sighing, glanced up at 
them, they looked down on me, one with my soul, with their pious 
eyes, so clear and bright. But we needed not their light. Thous- 
ands and fresh thousands of lamps and candles and girls' faces 
gleamed from all the windows ; at the corners of the streets flaring 
pitch-hoops were placed, and then every priest had his own private 
torch-bearer to keep him company. The Capuchins had generally 
little boys, who carried their lights for them, and the youthful fresh 
little faces looked up from time to time right curiously and pleased 
at the old solemn beards. A poor Capuchin like these cannot 
afford a greater torch-bearer and the boy to whom he teaches the 
Ave Maria, or whose old aunt confesses to him, must, at the pro- 
cession, perform this service gratis, and beyond question it is not 
done with the less love on that account. The monks who came 
after did not have much larger boys ; a few more respectable orders 
had grown up youths, and the high-minded and mitred priests re- 
joiced in having each a real citizen to hold a candle. But the one 
last of all, the Lord Archbishop — for such was the man who in 
aristocratic humility went along beneath the canopy, and whose 
train was borne by grey pages — had on either side a lackey, each bril- 
liant in blue livery with yellow laces, and who bore a white wax 
taper as ceremoniously as though he officiated at court. 

At all events this candle-bearing seemed to me to be a good 
arrangement, since it enabled me to see so plainly the faces per- 
taining to Catholicism, and now I have seen them, and in the best 
of lights at that. And what did I see ? Well ! the clerical stamp 
was nowhere wanting. But if this was not thought of, there was as 
great a variety in the faces as in those of other men. One was pale, 
another red, this man held his nose well up, that one was dejected, 
here there was a flashing black, there a flickering grey eye — but W- 

32* 



— 378 — 

every face there was a trace of the same malady ; a terrible incur- 
able malady, which will probably be the reason why my descendant, 
when he a century later looks at the procession in Lucca, will not 
find a single one of all those faces. I fear that I myself am infected 
with that illness, and that one result of it is that languor which so 
strangely steals over me when I see the sickly face of a monk, and 
read in it such sorrows as hide under a coarse cowl ; aggravated love, 
gout, disappointed ambition, spine complaint, remorse, hemorrhoids, 
and the heart-wounds which are caused by the ingratitude of friends, 
by the slander of enemies, and by our own sins. Yea, all of these, 
and far many more, which find no more difficulty in settling under a 
coarse cowl than beneath a fashionable dress coat. ! it is no 
exaggeration when the poet cries out in his agony, " life is a sickness, 
all the world a lazar-house ?" 

" And Death is our physician !" — Ah, I will say nothing evil of 
him and disturb none in their confidence in him ; for as he is the 
only physician, they may as well believe that he is the best, and that 
the only remedy which he employs, his eternal earth-cure, is also the 
best. His friends can say at least this much in his favor, that he is 
always at hand, and that despite his immense practice, he makes no 
one wait who earnestly desires to see him. And often does he 
follow his patient, even to the procession and bears for them the 
torch. Surely it was Death himself whom I saw walking by the 
side of a pale, sorrowful priest ; bearing in his thin, quivering, bony 
hands, a flickering torch, who nodded pleasantly and consolingly with 
his anxious, bald pate, and who weak as he himself was on the legs, still 
held up, from time to time, the old priest, whose steps seemed grow- 
ing weaker and readier to fall. He seemed to be whispering courage 
to the latter, " only wait a few short hours, then we will be home, 
and I will lay thee in bed, and thy cold, weary limbs may rest as 
long as they will, and thou shalt sleep so soundly that thou wilt not 
hear the whimpering of the little St. Michael's bell." 

"And against that man, also, I will write nothing," thought I, as 
I saw the poor pale priest, whom Death himself was lighting to his 
bed. 

Alas ! one ought really to write against no one in this world. We 
are all of us sick and suffering enough in this great Lazaretto, and 
many a piece of polemical reading involuntarily reminds me of a 
revolting quarrel in a little hospital at Cracow, where I was an 
accidental spectator, and where it was terrible to hear the sick 
mocking and reviling each other's infirmities, how emaciated ccn- 



— 379 — 

sumptives ridiculed those who were bloated with dropsy, how one 
laughed at the cancer in the nose of another, and he again jeered 
the locked-jaw and distorted eyes of his neighbors, until finally those 
who were mad with fever sprang naked from bed, and tore ihe 
coverings and sheets from the maimed bodies around, and there was 
nothing to be seen but revolting misery and mutilation. 



CHAPTER YI. 

He then also poured forth to the other immortals assembled 
Sweetest pleasantest nectar, the goblet quickly exhausting 
And still an infinite laughter rang from the happy, immortals 
As they saw how Hephsestos around was so cleverly passing. 
Thus through the live long day until the sun Avas declining 
The feast went on, nor was wanting through all the genial banquet 
Either the sound of the strings of the exquisite lyre of Apollo 
Nor the soft song of the Muse with voices sweetly replying. 

Suddenly there came gasping towards them a pale Jew, dripping 
with blood, a crown of thorns on his head ; bearing a great cross of 
wood on his shoulder ; and he cast the cross on the high table of the 
gods, so that the golden goblets trembled and fell, and the gods 
grew dumb and pale, and ever paler, till they melted in utter mist. 

Then there were dreary days, and the world became grey and 
gloomy. There were no more happy immortals, and Olympus be- 
came a hospital, where flayed, roasted and spitted gods went 
wearily, wandering round, binding their wounds and singing sorrowful 
songs. Religion no longer offered joy, but consolation ; it was a 
woeful, bleeding religion of transgressors. 

Was it, perhaps, necessary for miserable and oppressed humanity ? 
He who sees his God suffer, bears more easily his own afflictions. 
The merry gods of old, who felt no pangs, knew not of course the 
feelings of poor tortured Man, who in turn could in his need find no 
heart to turn to them. They were festival gods, around whom the 
world danced merrily, and who could only be praised at feasts. 
Therefore they were never loved from the very soul and with all the 
heart. To be so loved — one must be a sufferer. Pity is the last 
consecration of love, it may be, love itself. Of all the gods who 
loved in the olden time, Christ is the one who has been the most 
loved. Especially by the women 

Avoiding the bustling throng, I lost myself in a solitary church, 



— 380 — 

and what you, dear reader, have just read, are not so much my own 
thoughts, as certain involuntary words which came to life in me, 
while I reclining on one of the old benches for prayer, let the tones 
of the organ flow freely through my breast. Thus I lie in soul amid 
strange phantasies, the wondrous music suggesting, from time to 
time, a more wondrous text. At times my eyes sweep through the 
dim growing archways, seeking the dark visible echoes of forms 
belonging to those organ melodies. Who is that veiled figure kneel 
ing yonder before an image of the Madonna ? The swinging lamp 
which hangs before it, lights up fearfully yet sweetly the beautiful 
Mother of Suffering of a crucified love, the Venus dolorosa : but 
pandering gleams, full of mystery, fall, from time to time, as if by 
stealth, on the beautiful outlines of the veiled and praying lady. 
She lay, indeed, motionless on the stone altar steps, but in the 
quivering light her shadow seemed to live and often ran up to me 
and then retreated in haste, like a dumb negro, the timid love-mes- 
senger of a harem — and I understood him. He announced the arrival 
of his lady, the Sultaness of my heart. 

Minute by minute it grew darker in the empty house, here and 
there an undefined form glided along the pillars, now and then a soft 
murmur was heard in a side-chapel, and the organ groaned out its 
long-drawn tones, like the neart of a sighing giant. 

It seemed as though those organ notes would never cease, as though 
the death-notes of that living death would endure forever. I felt an 
indescribable depression of spirits, and such a nameless, anxious 
terror, as though I had been buried in a trance. Yes, as though I, 
one of the long dead, had risen from my grave, and had gone with 
dark mysterious comrades of the night into the Church of Phantoms, 
to hear the Prayer of the Dead and confess the Sins of the Corpse. 
I often felt as though I saw seated near me, in the spectral twilight, 
the long departed of the city, in obsolete Old-Florentine dresses, 
with long pale faces, with gold bound books of devotion in their thin 
hands, secretly whispering, nodding in silent melancholy-wise, one to 
the other. The wailing tone of a far away Bell of the Dead, 
reminded me again of the sick priest whom I had seen in the pro- 
cession, and I said to myself :. he too is now with the departed, but 
he will come here to read the first Night-Mass, and then the sad 
spectre scene will begin in earnest. But suddenly there arose from 
the steps of the altar, the lovely form of the veiled and praying 
lady- 
Yes, it was she, her living shade had already driven afar the white 



— 381 — 

phantoms, 1 now saw but her alone. 1 followed her quickly from 
the church, and as she, on passing the door, raised her veil, I saw it 
was Francesca's face, bedewed with tears. It was like a white rose 
flowered to fulness by love-longing, pearled by the dew of night and 
gleaming in the moon-rays. " Francesca, dost thou love me ?" I 
asked much and she answered but little. I accompanied her to 
the Hotel Croce di Malta, where she and Matilda lodged. The 
streets were empty, the houses slept with their window-eyes closed, 
only here and there, through their wooden lashes, there gleamed a 
light. High in heaven, among the clouds, there was a clear green 
space, and in it swam the half moon, like a gondola in an emeraldine 
sea. In vain I begged Francesca to look up for once at our dear 
old trusty friend — but she kept her head dreamily bent downwards. 
Her gait, once so elate and spirited, yet gliding, was now as it were 
in ecclesiastical measure, her steps were gloomy and Catholic, she 
moved as if to the music of an organ on some high festival day, and 
as her limbs had in other nights been inspired by Sin, so they now 
seemed to be inspired by Religion. On the way she crossed her 
head and breast before every saint's image ; and in vain did I at- 
tempt to aid her in this. But when we, on the Market Place, passed 
the Church of San Michiele, where the marble Mother of Pain 
gleamed forth dimly from her dark niche, with a gilded sword in her 
heart and a crown of lamps on her head, Francesca suddenly cast 
her arms around my neck, kissed me, and whispered " Cecco, Cecco, 
caro Cecco !" 

I calmly took charge of the kiss, though I well knew that it 
was really intended for a Bolognese abbe, a servant of the Roman 
Catholic Church. As a Protestant, I did not scruple to appropriate 
to my use the goods of the Catholic Church, and I consequently 
secularised the pious kiss of Francesca on the spot. I know that 
when the priests come to hear of this they will rage, they will scream 
out church robbery at me, and if possible, would gladly apply to me 
the French Law of Sacrilege. To my sorrow, I must confess that 
the aforesaid kiss was the only one which I got hold of, that night, 
Francesca had determined to devote the night, kneeling and in 
prayer, to the safety of her soul. In vain did I beg leave to share 
her pious exercises ; — when she reached her room she shut the door 
in my face. In vain did I stand a whole hour without, begging for 
entrance, sighing every possible sigh, feigning pious tears and 
swearing the most sanctified oaths — of course with clerical reserva- 
tion. — I felt that I was, little by little, becoming a Jesuit, I grew 



— 382 — 

altogether depraved, and finally offered for one night to become 
Catholic. 

" Francesca !" I cried, " Star of my thoughts ! Thought of my 
soul! vita della mia vita! my beautiful, oft-kissed, slender, Catholic 
Francesca ! for this one night, if thou wilt grant it to me, I will 
become a Catholic — but only for this night ! the beautiful, blessed. 
Catholic night ! I will lie in thy arms, with deepest Catholicism, I 
will believe in the Heaven of thy love, we will kiss the sweet confes- 
sion from our lips, the Word will be made flesh, Faith will become 
corporeal in body and in form ! oh what religion ! Ye priests ring 
forth meanwhile in joy your Kyrie Eleison, ring, burn incense, sound 
the bells ! let the organ be heard, peal out the mass of Palestrina 
— that is the Body ! — I believe, I am blest, I sleep — but so soon as 
I awake on the next morning, I will rub away sleep and Catholicism 
from my eyes, and see again clearly the sunlight and the Bible, and 
be as before, Protestant, reasonable and sober. 



CHAPTER VII. 



When the next day the sun smiled gloriously down from heaven, 
it banished all the sad thoughts an 3 sombre feelings which the pro- 
cession of the previous night had awakened in me, and had made life 
appear like a sickness and the world like a hospital. 

All the town was alive with a cheerful multitude — gaily decked 
mortals — while here and there among them hastened along a black 
little priest. All was noise and laughter and gossip ; scarce could 
we hear the chiming of the bells, which summoned us to grand mass 
in the Cathedral. This is a beautiful simple church, whose facade of 
variegated marble, is ornamented with those short pillars, rising one 
above the other, and which look with such a merry melancholy on 
us. Within, pillars and walls were clad in scarlet drapery, and serene 
music swelled forth over the wave-like masses of human beings. 
Francesca leaned upon my arm, and as I, on entering, gave her 
holy water, and as our souls were electrified by the delicious damp 
touch of each other's fingers, I received, simultaneously, such an 
electric shock on my leg, that I very nearly tumbled for terror over 
the kneeling peasant women who, clad all in white and loaded with 
long ear-rings and necklaces of yellow gold, covered in masses the 
floor. As I looked around, I saw auuutor Kneeling female, fanning 



— d&o - 

herself, and behind the fan I spied my Lady's merry eyes. I bent 
towards her, and she breathed at the same time languishingly into 
my ear, "delightful!" 

" For God's sake !" I whispered to her, " be serious ! If you laugh, 
we shall certainly be turned out of doors !" 

But prayer and entreaty was in vain. Fortunately no one under- 
stood the language in which we spoke. For ^hen my Lady arose 
and accompanied us through the throng to the high altar, she gave 
herself entirely up to her wild caprices without the slightest caution, 
as though we had stood alone on the Appenines. She ridiculed 
everything, even the poor painted pictures on the wall did not escape 
her arrows. 

" Look there," she cried, " at Lady Eve ne'e Rib, how she chats 
with the Serpent ! It was a good idea, that, of the painter to give 
the snake a human head with a human countenance ; but it would 
have been much more sensible if he had adorned the face of the 
seducer with a military moustache. Look there, Doctor, at the 
angel announcing to the highly blest Virgin her blessed ' situation,' 
and who laughs at the same time so ironically. I know what the 
rascal is thinking of! And that other Maria, at whose feet the 
holy alliance of the East are kneeling with their offerings of golfc, 
and incense — doesn't she look like Catalani ?" 

Signora Francesca, who, on account of her ignorance of English, 
understood nothing of all this chatter, save the word Catalani, 
quickly remarked that the lady of whom our friend spoke had really 
lost most of her celebrity. But our friend did not suffer herself to 
be in the least put out, and passed her comments on the pictures of 
the Passion to that of the Crucifixion, an exquisitely beautiful paint- 
ing, where, among others, three stupid idle faces were painted, look- 
ing on at their ease at the divine martyrdom, and which My Lady 
insisted, represented the deputies plenipotentiary of Austria, Russia, 
and France. 

Meanwhile the old frescoes, which occasionally appeared between 
the folds of scarlet drapery, had with their wondrous earnestness of 
expression, some influence in subduing the British love of mockery. 
There were among them faces from the heroic age of Lucca, of which 
so much is said in Machiavelli, that romantic Sallust, whose spirit 
sweeps towards us with such fire from the songs of Dante, the 
Catholic Homer. In those faces the strong feelings and barbaric 
thoughts of the Middle Age are well expressed, although on the 
mouth of many a silent youth there quivers a smiling confession that 



— 88i 

in those days all the roses were not of stone or unblown, and although 
through the pious down-drooping eye-lashes of many a Madonna of 
the day there twinkles a roguish leer of love, as though she were 
willing to present us with another infant Jssu«. At all events it is 
a higher spirit which speaks to us from those old Florentine paint- 
ings : it is the truly heroic, which we recognize in the marble images 
of the Gods of Antiquity, and which does not consist as our aesthetic 
philosophers suppose in eternal calm without passion, but in an 
eternal passionate emotion without unrest. We also see in several 
oil paintings of a later day which hang in the Cathedral of Lucca, 
the same old Florentine spirit — perhaps as a traditional echo. I 
was particularly pleased with a ' Wedding of Cana,' by a scholar of 
Andrea del Sarto, and which was somewhat harshly and stiffly 
painted. In it the Saviour sits between the soft fair bride and a 
Pharisee whose stony law-table countenance is in amazement at the 
genial prophet who so cheerfully mingles with the merry guests, and 
treats them to miracles far surpassing those of Moses ; for the latter, 
though he struck with all his force on the rocks, brought forth 
nothing but water, while the latter needed only to speak a single 
word to fill all the jars with the best of wine Far softer, almost 
Venetian in color, is the portrait of an* unknown person hanging 
near it and in which the pleasant blending of hues is strangely quali- 
fied by a pain which thrills the soul. It represents Mary anointing 
the feet of Jesus and drying them with her hair. Christ sits there 
among his disciples, a beautiful, intelligent God, who with human 
sorrow feels a fearful pious commiseration for his own body, which 
ere long must suffer so much ; and to whom the flattering unction of 
honour which the dead receive is already due and already realized. 
He smiles calmly on the kneeling woman, who impelled by a presen- 
timent of loving anguish performs her pitying task, a deed which 
will never be forgotten so long as suffering humanity shall endure, 
and which will breathe forth a perfume for the refreshing of those 
suffering for thousands of years. With the exception of the youth 
who rested on the bosom of Christ, and who remarks the deed, 
none of the Apostles appear to realize its peculiar significance, and 
the one with the red beard appears, even as the Scripture states, to 
make the morose remark, " Why was not this ointment sold for 
three hundred pence and given to the poor?" This economical 
Apostle was the one who carried the purse, the familiarity with 
money and business appears to have rendered him insensible to all 
tbe unselfish perfume of love, he would gladly exchange it for pence 



— 385 — 

for a practical purpose, and it was just he, the penny changer, who 
betrayed the Saviour — for thirty pence. Thus does the Bible sym- 
bolically in the history of the Banker among the Apostles reveal the 
unholy power of seduction which lurks in the money-bag, and warn 
us against the faithlessness of money brokers. Every rich man is a 
Judas Iscariot. 

" You are making faces as though you were trying to choke down 
your piety, dear Doctor," whispered my Lady. " I was just looking 
and — excuse me if the remark is slanderous — but I really thought 
that you looked like a good Christian." 

"Between you and me I am so ; yes, Christ — " 

" Do you believe, perhaps, that he is a God ?" 

" That, of course, my good Matilda. He is the God whom I 
mostly love — not because he is a legitimate God whose Father since 
time immemorial ruled the world ; but because he, though a born 
Dauphin of Heaven is democratically minded, loving no courtly cere- 
monial splendor, because he is not a God of shaven and shorn book- 
ish pedants and laced men-at-arms, and because he is a modest God 
of the People, a citizen-GoD, un bon dieu citoyen. Truly, if Christ 
were no God, I would vote that he should be such, and much rather 
than an absolute God who has forced himself to power would I obey 
him, the elected God, the God of my choice. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Archbishop, a solemn grey old man, read mass in person and 
to tell the truth, not only I, but even to a certain degree, my Lady, 
was moved by the spirit latent in this holy ceremony and by the 
sanctity of the old man who officiated ; — albeit every old man is in 
and by himself a priest, and the ceremonies of the Catholic world 
are so primaevally old that they are perhaps the only ones which 
have remained from the infancy of the world and have a claim on 
our pious feelings as a memorial of the first forefathers of all man- 
kind. " Look, my Lady." said I, " every gesture which you here 
behold, the manner of laying on the hands and the spreading out of 
the arms, this bowing, this washing of the hands, this burning and 
offering of incense, this cup, yes, the entire clothing of the man from 
the mytra* to the hem of the stole — all is ancient Egyptian and 

* Mithra, mytra, mitre. 

33 



— 380 - 

the remains of a priesthood of whose wondrous existence the oldest 
records only tell us a little, an early hierarchy which investigated the 
first wisdom of the world, which discovered the first gods, which 
invented the first symbols, and by whom young humanity " 

" Was first cheated and betrayed," added my Lady, in a bitter 
tone, "and I believe, Doctor, that of this earliest age of the world 
there remains nothing but a few dreary formulas of deceit. And 
they are still active and potent. Only look there, for instance, at 
the fearfully benighted faces ! — particularly at that fellow who is 
planted on his stupid knees, and who, with his wide, staring mouth,, 
looks so much like an ultra-blockhead." 

" For Heaven's sake !" I remarked, in a soothing manner, " what 
does it matter if that head has received so little of the light of 
reason? What is that to us? Why should that irritate you? 
Don't you see every day, oxen, cows, dogs, asses, which are quite as 
stupid without suffering your equanimity to be disturbed at the sight 
or being excited to angry expressions ?" 

" Ah, that is an entirely different matter," rejoined my Lady, " for 
those beasts have tails behind, and I vex myself just for that, to think 
that a fellow who is so bestially stupid has, however, behind him. 
no tail at all. 

" Yes- — that is a very different matter, indeed, my Lady !" 



CHAPTER IX. 



After the mass there was still much to see and to hear, especi- 
ally the sermon of a great two-fisted monk, whose bold, command- 
ing old Roman countenance contrasted singularly with his coarse 
cowl, so that he looked like the Emperor of Poverty. He preached 
of heaven and of hell, falling at times into the wildest enthusiasm. 
His description of heaven was somewhat barbarously overloaded, 
since he filled it with gold, silver, jewels, costly food and wine of 
the best vintages. He made too, such inspired mouth-watering 
grimaces, and rolled himself to and fro in his gown as though he 
believed himself to be flying among white-winged angels and one of 
them. Much less delightful, yes, even very practically earnest, was 
his description of hell. Here the man was far more in his element. 
He was especially zealous against those sinners who do not believe, 
as Christianly as they should, in the old fires of hell, and even think 



— 387 — 

that they have somewhat cooled down of late preparatory to a 
general extinguishment. " And," he cried, " if hell were going out, 
then would I with my breath blow up the last glimmering coals till 
they should blaze up again into all the first fury of their flame." 
Had any one heard the voice, like the north wind, with which these 
words were howled forth, and could he have seen the glowing face, 
the red neck strong as a buffalo's, and the mighty fist of the monk, 
he would not have regarded this hellish threat as a hyperbole. 

" / like this, man" said my Lady. 

" There you are right," I replied, " and he pleases me too, bettei 
than our soft homoeopathic spiritual doctors, who dilute their one- 
ten-thousandth grain of reason with a bucket of moral water, and 
with it preach us to repose of a Sunday." 

" Yes, Doctor, I have respect for his hell, but I can't quite agree 
with him as to his heaven. In fact I very early had my doubts as 
to the nature of heaven. While I was still very young in Dublin, I 
often lay on my back in the grass, and looked up at heaven and 
wondered if it really contained so many splendid things as people 
said ! * And,' thought 1, ' if it does, why is it that none of these fine 
things ever fall down — say a diamond ear-ring or a pearl-necklace, 
or at least a piece of pine-apple cake ? and why is it that nothing 
but hail, snow or common rain ever comes down ? That isn't 
exactly as it should be,' thought I — " 

" Why do you say that, my Lady ? Why not rather be silent 
with such doubts ? Unbelievers who put no faith in heaven should 
not make proselytes ; I much less blame — on the contrary I rather 
praise — the efforts of those convert-makers who have a splendid 
heaven and who, so far from wishing to keep it to themselves, invite 
their fellow-mortals to share it with them, and who never rest till 
their invitations are accepted." 

" I have always wondered, Doctor, that so many rich people of 
that sort, such as Presidents, Yice-Presidents or Secretaries of 
societies for converting unbelievers, take such pains to make, for 
instance, some rusty old Jew-beggar fit for heaven, and to secure his 
future society there, without ever so much as dreaming of letting 
him take part in the things which they enjoy here on earth — such as 
inviting him during summer to their country-seats, where there are 
beyond question dainties which would taste as good to the poor 
rogue as though he were in heaven itself." 

" That is intelligible enough, my Lady ; the heavenly delights cost 
nothing and it is often a double pleasure when we can make our 



— 388 — 

fellow-beings happy at so slight an expense. But to what pleasures 
can the unbeliever invite any one ?" 

" To nothing, Doctor, but to a long peaceful sleep, which may, 
however, be very desirable to a suffering mortal, especially if he has 
been previously tormented with importunate invitations to heaven." 

The beautiful woman spoke these words with bitter accents which 
went to the heart, and it was not without some earnestness that 1 
replied : " Dear Matilda, in all that I have seen and done in this 
world I have not once troubled myself as to whether there were a 
heaven or a hell. I am too great and too proud to be tempted by 
heavenly rewards or alarmed by the punishments of hell. I strive 
for the good because it is beautiful and irresistibly attracts me, and 
I hate the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. Even as a boy 
when I read Plutarch — and I still read him every night in bed and 
often feel as if I would fain jump np and take extra-post and become 
a great man — even then I was pleased with the story of the woman 
who went through the streets of Alexandria, bearing in one hand a 
burning torch and in the other a leathern bottle of water, crying to 
the multitude that with the water she would quench the fire of hell, 
and with the torch would set fire to heaven, so that people should 
cease to do evil merely from fear of punishment and not do good 
for the sake of reward. All our deeds should spring from the source 
of an unselfish love, whether there is to be a continuance after death 
or not." 

" Then you do not believe in immortality ?" 

" Oh, you are shrewd, my Lady ! I doubt it ? /, whose heart 
ever strikes deeper and deeper root into the most distant millen- 
niums of the past and of the future. I, who am myself one of the 
most immortal of men, whose every breath is an eternal life, whose 
every thought is an undying star — 1 disbelieve in immortality !" 

" I think, Doctor, that it must require an inordinate share o. 
vanity and presumption too, after enjoying so much that is good 
and beautiful on earth, to ask immortality of the Lord in addition 
to it all ! Man, the aristocrat among animals, who thinks himself 
better than his fellow-creatures, would like also to work out for him- 
self this privilege of endless life by court-like hymns of adoration 
and praise and kneeling-prayer. Oh, I know what that twitching 
of the lips means, my immortal gentleman !" 



389 - 



CHAPTER X. 

The Signora begged us to accompany her to a convent where a 
miraculous cross, the most remarkable in all Tuscany, was preserved. 
And it was well that we left the Cathedral, for my lady's eccentrici- 
ties would have soon got us into a scrape. She foamed over with 
brilliant caprices, prtetty and pleasant foolish fancies, which leaped 
about self-willed and wild as kittens. On leaving the Cathedral she 
dipped her forefinger three times in the holy water, and sprinkled 
herself with it each time, murmuring, " Dem zefardeyim kinnim," 
which is, according to her assertion, the Arabic formula used by sor- 
ceresses to transform a human being to an ass. 

On the Piazza, or open place before the Cathedral, a body of troops, 
nearly all clad in Austrian uniform, were exercising, the word of 
command being given in German. At least I heard the German 
words — " Prcexeniirts Gewehr! Fuss Gewehr! Schulters Gewehr! 
Eechts uml Halt!"* I believe that in all the Italian, as well as in 
several other European States they command in German. Ought 
we Germans to plume ourselves on it? Have we so many orders to 
give in this world that German has even become the language of com- 
mand? Or have we been ordered about so much that those who are 
obedient and subject best understand the German tongue? 

My Lady did not seem to be a friend to parades and reviews : 
" I do not like," said she, "to be near such men with sabres and guns, 
particularly when they march along in great numbers, and in regular 
rows in great reviews. What if some one among these thousands of 
men should suddenly go mad, and shoot me dead on the spot with 
the musket which he holds in his hand? Or, what if he should sud- 
denly become rational and think? What have I to risk? or lose? 
even if they should take my life ? Perhaps, the other world, which 
they promise us, isn't so brilliant after all, as they say, and if it be 
ever so bad they certainly cannot give me less than six kreutzers a 
day — suppose, then, just for the joke of the thing, that I stab that 
little English lady with the impertinent nose? Wouldn't I be in the 
greatest danger of my life then ? If I were a king I would divide 
my soldiers into two classes, and one of them should believe in im- 
mortality, so that they might be brave in battle, aEd not fear death, 

* Present arms ! Ground arms ! Shoulder arms ! Right about face I Halt! 

33* 



— 390 - 

and I would only use them in war. But the others should be 
employed in parades and reviews, and lest it should come into their 
heads that they have nothing to lose, (and so kill somebody for the 
sake of a joke) I would forbid them on pain of death to believe in 
immortality, — yes, I would even give them some butter on their 
ammunition bread, so that they might have a real fancy to live. 
But the first, those immortal heroes, should have a right hard life 
of it, so that they might despise mortality and regard the roar of the 
cannon as the introduction to a better life." 

" My Lady," said I, " you would be but an indifferent ruler. You 
know but little of government, and nothing at all of politics. If you 
had read the Political Annals " 

"I understand them, perhaps, even better than you, my dear 
Doctor. While I was very young, I tried to instruct myself in 
them. While I was still young in Dublin — " 

"And lay on your back in the , grass — reflecting or not — as at 
Ramsgate " 

A glance as of a light reproach of ingratitude shot from my Lady's 
eyes, but she then smiled again, and continued : " While I was yet 
young in Dublin, and used to sit on a corner of the cricket where 
mother's feet rested, I had all sorts of questions to ask, what the 
tailors, the shoemakers, the bakers, in short, what all sorts of people 
had to do in the world ? And mother explained that the tailors 
made clothes, the shoemakers made shoes, the bakers baked bread. — 
And when I asked what the kings did ? Mother told me that they 
governed. ' Dear mother,' I replied ; ' do you know that if I were a 
king, I'd go one whole day without reigning, just to see how it looked 
in the world.' ' Dear child' said mother, ' many a king does that 
and yet the world looks just the same as ever.' " 

" Yes, my Lady, your mother was really in the right. Particularly 
here in Italy are there such kings, as we see for instance in Pied- 
mont and Naples " 

"Well Doctor, we shouldn't blame an Italian king for not reigning 
on some days when it is so terribly warm. The only danger is that 
the Carbonari may turn such a day to account, for I have re- 
marked that now-a-days revolutions always break out on those 
days when no reigning is going on. If the Carbonari made a mis- 
take aud believed that it was a day without reigning, when contrary 
to all expectation the king did reign, they all lost their heads. 
Therefore the Carbonari can never be careful enough and must be 
particular in choosing their time. So that the most delicate and 



— 391 — 

difficult duty of the king is to keep secret those days when there 
is no reigning, and then they should at least sit down three ex 
four times on the throne, and perhaps mend a pen or seal up en- 
velopes, 07 rule white paper — all for show of course — so that the pea- 
pie outside who peep into the palace-windows may believe in ail 
sincerity that the reigning is still going on." 

While such remarks came from my Lady's delicate little mouth 
there swam a smile of tranquil happiness around the full rosy lips of 
Francesca. She scarcely spoke, but her gait was no longer inspired 
with the sighing rapture of self-denial so manifest on the previous 
evening. She now walked triumphantly along, every step the sound 
of a trumpet ; and yet it seemed to be rather a spiritual victory, than 
one of this world which inspired her movements. She was almost 
the ideal image of a church triumphant, and around her head swept 
an invisible glory. But the eyes, as if smiling through tears, were 
again those of a child of this world, and in the varied stream of 
humanity which swept past us no single article of clothing had 
escaped her searching glance. 

"Ecco!" was her exclamation, "what a shawl! — the Marquis 
shall buy me such a cashmere for my turban when I dance Roxe- 
lana. Ah ! and he has promised me a diamond cross too !" 

Poor Gumpelino ! you will agree to the shawl without much de- 
murring — the cross however will cost you many a bitter hour. But 
Signoia will torture you so long and keep you so long on the rack 
that you must at last give in to her wishes ! 



CHAPTER XI. 



The church in which the miraculous crucifix of Lucca is to be seen, 
belongs to a monastery, the name of which at this instant has 
escaped me. 

As we entered the church there lay on their knees before the 
high altar a dozen monks in silent prayer. Only now and then they 
spoke, as if in chorus, a few broken words which echoed as it were 
awefully through the solitary columned aisles. The church was 
dark, except that through small painted windows fell a many-colored 
light on bald heads and brown cowls. Unpolished lamps of copper 
dimly illuminated the blackened frescoes and altar-pieces, while from 
the wall projected carved wooden heads of saints, coarsely colored, 



- 392 — 

and which in the dubious flickering light seemed grinning at us in 
grim life. Suddenly my lady screamed aloud, and pointed to a tomb 
stone beneath our feet, on which in relief was the stiff image of a 
bishop with mythra and crosier, folded hands and trodden away nose. 
" Ah !" she whispered, " I just then trod rudely on his stone nose, 
and now he will appear to me in dreams, and then his nose — who 
knows ? " 

The sacristan, a pale young monk, showed us the miraculous cross, 
and narrated the miracle which it had effected. Whimsical as I am, 
I probably did not appear incredulous on this occasion. I have now 
and then my attacks of belief in marvels, especially when, as in this in- 
stance the place and the hour are favorable to them, and I then believe 
that everything in the world is a miracle and all history a legend. 
Was I inspired with the faith in marvels of Feancesca who kissed 
the cross with the wildest enthusiasm ? I was vexed and annoyed 
with the wild mockery of the witty English lady — perhaps I was the 
more irritated by it since I felt that I was not myself entirely free from 
the contagion, yet still regarded it as by no means praiseworthy. It 
cannot be denied that the passion for ridicule and mockery, the delight 
in the incongruity of things, has something evil in it, while seriousness 
is more allied with the better feelings — virtue, the sense of liberty and 
love itself are very serious. Meanwhile there are hearts in which 
jest and earnest, the bad and the holy, heat and cold mingle so 
strangely, that it would be difficult to pass a separate judgment on 
either. Such a heart swam in the bosom of Matilda ; often it was a 
freezing island of ice on whose polished mirror-like ground there 
bloomed forth deeply longing, glowing forests of palms — as often an 
enthusiastic blazing volcano, which was suddenly overwhelmed by a 
laughing avalanche of snow. She was by no means evilly inclined, 
with all her abandon — not even sensuous ; nay, I believe that she had 
only caught the humorous side of sensuality, and delighted herself 
with it as with a merry, ridiculous puppet show. It was a humorous 
longing, a sweet curiosity to know how this or that queer character 
would behave when in love. How entirely different was Feancesca ! 
There was a catholic unity in all her thoughts and feelings. By day 
she was a pale yearning moon, by night a glowing sun — moon of my 
days ! sun of my nights ! I shall never see thee again ! 

" You are right," said my Lady, " I also believe in the wonder- 
working powers of a cross. I am convinced that if the Marquis does 
not higgle and hesitate too long over the diamond cross, it will cer- 
tainly work a brilliant miracle on the Signora, and she will be at last 



— 393 — 

so dazzled by its brilliancy as even to be enamored of his nose. And 
I have often heard of the miraculous powers of crosses of nobility 
which have the power of changing an honest man into a rascal." 

And so the beautiful lady ridiculed everything. She flirted with 
the poor sacristan — made the drollest excuses to the bishop with the 
worn-out nose, declining in the politest manner any return of her call, 
and as we came to the holy-water font, she again attempted to turn 
me into an ass. 

Whether it was a sincere mood inspired by the place, or whether 
it was that I felt inclined to rebuff as sharply as possible this jest, 
which really vexed me, I know not, but I assumed the appropriate 
pathos, and spoke : 

" My Lady, I have no liking for those of your sex who despise 
religion. Beautiful women without religion are like flowers without 
perfume, resembling those cold sober tulips which look upon us 
from their porcelain vases, as though they themselves were of porce- 
lain, and which if they could speak, would without doubt, explain to 
us how very naturally they grow from a bulb, how all-sufficient it is 
for any one here below not to smell badly, and how, so far as per- 
fume is concerned, a rational flower has no need of it whatever." 

Even at the very mention of a tulip, my Lady was in a state of the 
most passionate excitement, and as I spoke, her idiosyncracy against 
the flower acted so powerfully, that she held her ears as if desperate. 
It was half of it acted, but half was piqued earnestness, as she cast 
at me a bitter glance, and asked from her very heart, and with all 
the sharpness of irony — 

"And you, dear flower, which of the current religions do you 
profess ?" 

" I, my Lady, have them all, - the perfume of my soul rises to 
Heaven and overcomes even the immortal gods themselves." 



CHAPTER XII. 



As Signora could not understand our conversation, which was 
carried on principally in English, she conceived the idea — Lord 
knows how ! — that we were quarrelling about the pre-eminence of our 
respective nations. She, therefore, began to praise the English and 
the Germans also, although at heart she regarded the former as 
wanting sense, and the latter as stupid. And she had a peculiarly 



— 394 — 

bad opinion of the Prussians, whose country according to her geo« 
graphy, lay far beyond England and Germany, while her worst ill-will 
was reserved for the King of Prussia, the great Federigo, before 
whom, her enemy Signora Seraphina, had danced the previous year 
in a ballet at her benefit : for singular enough, this king, that is 
to say, Frederick the Great, still lives on the Italian stage, and in 
the memory of the Italian people. 

"No," said my Lady, without paying the slightest attention to 
Signora's sweet caresses and blandishments — " no, it is not neces- 
sary to change this man into an ass. Why, he not only changes his 
opinions every ten steps and continually contradicts himself, but 
now he even turns missionary, and, upon my word, I believe he 
is a Jesuit in disguise. I must make up devout faces myself to be 
safe, or- else he'll give me over to his fellow hypocrites in Christ, to 
the dilettanti of the Holy Inquisition, who will burn me in effigy, 
since the police does not as yet permit them to throw people in per- 
son into the fire. Oh ! honorable gentleman, dear sir, don't believe 
that I am as intelligent as I seem to be ; indeed, I am not wanting in 
religion, I am not a tulip, on my honor, no tulip ! for heaven's sake, 
no tulip — I had rather believe anything ! I believe now in the prin- 
cipal things in the Bible. I believe that Abraham begat Isaac, that 
Isaac begat Jacob, and that Jacob begat Judah, and that Judah in 
turn " knew" his daughter-in-law Tamar on the highway. I believe, 
too, that Lot drank too much with his daughters. I believe that 
Potiphar's wife kept in her hands the robes of Joseph. I believe that 
both the elders who surprised Susanna in her bath were very old. 
Moreover, I believe that the patriarch Jacob cheated first his brother 
and then his father-in-law, that King David gave Uriah a good ap- 
pointment in the army, that Solomon got himself a thousand wives 
and then complained that all was vanity ! I believe in the Ten Com- 
mandments, too ; and even keep most of them. I do not covet my 
neighbor's ox, nor his maid-servant, nor his cow, nor his ass. I do 
not work on the Sabbath, the seventh day on which the Lord rested ; 
yet, to be on the safe side, since we don't know exactly which was 
the. seventh day of rest, I often do nothing through the whole week. 
But, as for the commandments of Christ, I always obeyed the one 
which is most important — that we should love our enemies — for, ah ! 
those persons whom I have best loved, were always, without my 
knowing it, my worst enemies." 

" For heaven's sake, Matilda, do not weep !" I cried as there onco 
more darted forth a tone of the acutest anguish frcm the most genial 



— 395 — 

mockery like a serpent from a bed of flowers. I well knew that tone 
which often thrilled the wild and witty crystal-heart of the strange 
and lovely woman, powerfully it was true, but never for a long time, 
and I well knew that it would vanish as readily as it had risen, before 
the first jest which one would utter to her, or which would flit 
through her own soul. While she stood leaning against the mon- 
astery gate, pressing her burning cheeks against the cold stone, and 
wiping the tears from her eyes with her longhair, I tried to revive her 
merry mood by mystifying poor Francesca ; giving the latter the 
most important particulars of the Seven Years' War, which appeared 
to be to her a matter of especial interest, and which she believed to be 
still going on. I told her many interesting things of the great 
Federigo, the witty gaiter-god of Sans Souci who invented the 
Prussian monarchy, and when young played right well on the flute and 
made French verses. Francesca asked me if the Prussians or the 
Germans would conquer? For, as I have already intimated she 
supposed the former to be an entirely different race, and it is indeed 
common enough in Italy to imply by the name Germans only the 
natives of Austria. Signora was not a little astonished when I told 
her that I myself had lived for a long time in the Capitate delta 
Prussia, that is to say in Berelino, a city which lies very far up on 
the map, not far from the North Pole. She shuddered as I depicted 
to her the dangers to which one is there exposed from the Polar 
bears which stray about the streets. " For dear Francisca," I ex- 
plained to her, "in Spitzbergen there are by far too many bears 
which lie there in garrison and they sometimes visit Berlin, either 
inspired by desire to see the ' bear'* and the Bassa, or else to eat a 
good dinner at Bergermann's in the Cafe Koyal — an indulgence which 
sometimes costs more money than they have with them, in which 
case one of the bears is bound down there until his companions 
return and pay for him, whence the expression of ' to bind a bear,' 
originated. Many bears live in the city itself; yes, some people even 
assert that Berlin owes its origin to the bears and ought really to be 
called Bearlin. The town-bears are however very tame, and some 
oi" them are so highly educated that they write the most beautiful 
tragedies and compose the finest music. Wolves are also very com- 
mon there, but as they generally go clad in sheep's clothing on 



* Vide page 86. It may be remarked that a " bear" not only signifies a debt, but is 
also used by students as an abusive epithet. It is in this latter sense as well as the 
former that Heine here uses it. 






— 396 



'-K- 



account of the cold, they are difficult to recognize. ' Snow-geese 
flutter about there and sing bravura airs, while reindeer,f who are 
dear enough to their tenants, reign with undisputed sway as con- 
noisseurs in art. On the whole the Berliners live very temperately 
and industriously, and most of them sit buried up to their navels in 
snow, writing works of positive religion, devotional books, religious 
tales for daughters of the higher classes, catechisms, sermons for 
every day in the year, Eloha-poems,*and are meanwhile very moral— 
for they sit up to the navel in snow." 

"Are the Berliners then Christians?" cried Signora, in amazement. 

" Their Christianity is of a peculiar species. This religion is at 
bottom utterly and entirely wanting in them, and they are also, much 
too reasonable to seriously practise it. But as they know that 
Christianity is necessary in a state, so that the subjects may be nicely 
obedient, and so that people may not steal and murder too much, 
they endeavor with great eloquence, to at least convert their fellow 
beings to Christianity, seeking as it were "substitutes" in a religion, 
whose maintenance is desirable to them, and whose strict practice as 
well as profession would give them too much trouble. In this di- 
lemma, they employ the zealous service of poor Jews, who are 
obliged to become Christians for them, and as this race will do any- 
thing for gold, and for good words, they have at length exercised 
themselves completely into the very depths of Christianity. Yes — . 
so deeply that they cry out as well as the best against unbelief, 
fight as for life and death for the Trinity, believe in it even in the 
dog-days, rage against the naturalists, slip secretly around in many 
lands as missionaries and spies of the faith, circulate tracts, roll up 
their eyes better than any one in the churches, make the most hypo- 
critical faces, and act piety with such success, that the old ' two of a 
trade' envy is beginning already to show itself, and the old masters 
of the business secretly bewail that Christianity is at present entirely 
in the hands of the Jews." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Though Signora did not understand me, you at least dear reader 
will have no difficulty in doing so. My Lady also understood me, 

* Schneegaense from Schneegans. Lat. Anser hyperboraus, soft white pretty misses >1 
the kind which reminded Thackeray of rabbits, 
t Bennthiere, a reindeer. Bentirer, one who lives on his rents. 



_ 397 — 

and the effect thereof was to revive her good humor. But as I — (I 
do not really know if it was done with a serious expression) — under- 
took to assert that the multitude needed a settled religion, she could 
not refrain from again attacking me in her peculiar manner. 

" People must have a religion !" she cried. " Always must I hear 
that text preached by a thousand stupid, and by endless thousands 
of hypocritical lips " 

"And yet my Lady it is true. As the mother cannot answer 
every question to the child with truth, because its power of compre- 
hension is not sufficient, so in like manner there must be a positive 
religion, a church which can answer for the people according to their 
comprehension, and reduce to the test of the senses, all such ques- 
tions as transcend sensation." 

" Oh misery ! Doctor, your very comparison puts me in mind of a 
story which in its application is not very favorable to your theory. 
While I was yet young in Dublin " 

► " And lay on your back " 
"Pshaw! Doctor, there's no speaking a reasonable word with 
you — stop laughing at me, I say, in that indecent way and listen. 
While I was still young in Dublin and sat at my mother's feet, 1 
once asked what people did with the old full moons. 'My dear 
I child,' said mother, ' the Lord breaks the old moons to pieces with 
the sugar hammer, and makes little stars of them.' One shouldn't 
j blame my mother for telling such a story, for with the very best 
: astronomical knowledge, she could never have explained to me the 
\ whole system of the sun, moon and stars, and she accordingly 
i answered the supernatural question in a natural way. But it would 
have been better had she put off the question until I was older, or at 
i least told me the plain truth. For when I afterwards was looking with 
; little Lucy at the full moon, and explained to her how stars were to 
be made from it. she laughed at me and said that her grandmother, 
old Mrs. O'Meara, had told her that the full moons were eaten in 
hell for fire-melons, and because there was no sugar there, they 
sprinkled them with pepper and salt. As Lucy had at first laughed 
at my naive evangelic opinion, so I now laughed at her gloomy 
catholic idea, from laughing we got to fighting; we scratched, and we 
spit at each other in the real polemic style, until little O'Donnbl 
came out of school and separated us. This boy had been better 
instructed than we in the heavenly science, he understood mathema- 
tics, and calmly explained to us our mutual errors, and the folly of 
our quarrel. And what was the result? Why we two girls at once 

34 



— 398 — 

stopped our quarrel, and united our forces to give the quiet little 
mathematician a good beating." 

" My Lady. I am troubled, grieved at what you say, for you are in 
the right. But matters can't be changed, people will always go on 
fighting as to the pre-eminence of the conceptions of religion, which 
were first instilled into their minds, and the reasonable men among 
them will thereby be doomed to double suffering. Once, of course, 
things were different, when it never occurred to any one to particularly 
extol the doctrines or solemnity of his religion, or to press it on any 
one. Religion was a dear and beautiful tradition, holy narratives, 
commemorative festivals and mysteries were handed down from 
ancestors as the sacred family rites of the people, and it would have 
been a harsh and cruel thing for a Greek, if a foreigner, not of his 
race, had demanded fellowship in the same religion with him ;- and 
it would have seemed to him a still more inhuman thing, to induce 
any one by compulsion or cunning, to give up the religion to which 
he was born, and to substitute for it a strange one. But there came 
a race from Egypt, from the fatherland of the crocodile and of priest- 
hood, and in addition to cutaneous diseases, and the stolen vessels of 
gold and silver, this race brought with it a so-called positive religion, 
a so-called church, a structure of dogmas, in which men must believe, 
and holy ceremonies which men must celebrate — the first type of 
later religions of state. Then arose the endless finding of faults in 
human nature, the making of proselytes, the compulsion of faith, and 
all that holy torture which has cost the human race so much blood, 
and so many tears." 

" God damn this primey?7 race !"* 

" Oh, Matilda, it has long been damned, and has dragged the 
agonies of its damnation with it for thousands of years. 0, this 
Egypt ! her works defy time, her pyramids still stand unshattered as 
of old, her mummies are as imperishable as ever, and not less imper- 
ishable is that mummy of a race, which wanders over the world 
wrapped in most ancient swathing bands of letters, a petrified frag- 
ment of the History of the World, a spectre which gets its living by 
trading in bills of exchange and old pantaloons. My Lady, do you 
see yonder, that old man with a white beard, the point of which 
seems to be growing black again, — a man with ghost-like eyes." 

" Are not the ruins of the old Roman graves there?" 

"Yes — and til ere he sits offering his prayer, a fearful prayer, in 

* Goddamm ! dieses Uruebelvolk. 



— 399 — 

which he bewails his sufferings, and accuses races which have long 
since vanished from the earth, and now live only in nursery legends- 
while he in his pain, scarce marks that he sits on the graves of those 
very enemies for whose destruction he prays to heaven. 



CHAPTER XIV. 






I spoke in the previous chapter of positive religions, only so far as 
they are especially privileged by the state, as churches, under the 
name of state-religions. But there is a pious dialectic, dear reader, 
which will prove to you in the most convincing manner, that the 
opponent of the ecclesiastical system of such a religion of state is 
also an enemy of religion, and of the state, an enemy of God and of 
the king, or as the common formula reads, an enemy of the throne 
and of the altar. But / tell you that it is a lie, I honor the real 
holiness of every religion, and conform myself to the interests of the 
Btate. And if I do not render homage, and devote myself to Anthro- 
pomorphism, I still believe in the power and glory of God, and even 
though kings are so insane as to resist the spirit of the people, or 
even so ignoble as to oppress their organs by neglect and persecu- 
tion, I still remain, in accordance with my deepest conviction, an 
adherent to the kingdom and to the monarchical principle. I do not 
hate the throne, but I do those windy nothings of aristocratic vermin 
which have nestled in the crannies of the old throne, and whose cha- 
racter Montesquieu has described so accurately with the words : 
"' Ambition hand in hand with Indolence, Vulgarity allied to Pride, 
the longing to become rich without labor, the dislike of truth, flat- 
tery, treachery, faithlessness and the breaking of words, the con- 
tempt of the duties of the citizen, the fear of princely virtue, and an 
interest in princely vice !" I do not hate the altar, but I hate the 
serpents which lurk amid the loose stones of the old altar ; those 
malignantly cunning snakes which can smile innocently as flowers, 
while they secretly spirt their poison into the cup of life, and hiss 
slander into the ear of the pious one praying ; those glossy, gliding 
worms with soft svve< t words : 

Mel in ore, verba laetis 

Fel in corde, fraus in factis."* 

*It ^vorea pity to spare the lover of Latin rhymes a line ot this fine old proverb, which 



— 400 — 

And just because I am a friend of the state and of religion, do I 
hate that abortion termed the religion of state, that mockery of a 
creation, which was born of the lewd love of the worldly and the 
spiritual powers, that mule which the white stallion of Auti-Christ 
begot upon the she-ass of Christ. If there were no such religion of 
state, no privilege of dogma and of a religion, Germany would be united 
and strong, and her sons lordly and free. But as it is, our poor Father- 
land is torn by divisions of creeds, the people are separated into war- 
ring parties in religion, Protestant subjects quarrel with Catholic 
princes, or vice-versa, everywhere there is mistrust, or crypto- 
Catholicism or crypto-Protestantism, accusations of heresy, espion- 
age of views and opinions, pietism, mysticism, smelling of rats by 
church journals, sectarian hatred and zeal for conversion, so that while 
we fight for heaven above, we are all going to the devil here on earth 
below. An indifferentism in religion would be, perhaps, the only 
thing which could save us, and by becoming weak in faith, Germany 
might grow politically strong. 

But it is as ruinous for religion itself, and for her holy existence, 
when she is clad with privileges, and when her servants are espe- 
cially endowed by the state with power to represent it, so that one 
hand as it were washes the other, the religious the worldly, and vice- 
versa, from which a wish-wash results which is to the blessed Lord a 
folly, and to man a torture. If the state has opponents, they will 
become foes to the religion which confers privileges on the state, and 
consequently renders them allies ; and even the innocent believer 
will become mistrustful when he detects political objects in religion. 
But the most repulsive of all is the pride of the priests when they, 
for the service which they think they have done the state, presume 

crackles like a fire of twigs in so many eccentric collections of the XVI. and XVII. cen- 
turies. 

" Multis annis jam peractis 

Nulla fides est in pactis, 

Mel in ore, verba lactis, 

Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 

and -which is translated in the following very slip-shod manner, in' "The Sketch Book of 
Meister Karl:" 

fi For many years, my friend, the fact is, 
That honesty is out of practice, 
And honeid words and fawning smile 
Are ever mixed with fraud and guile." 
I have somewhere met with another version of these rhymes, in which the first line 
was given thus : 

"Omnibus rebus jam peractis." 

[Notes by Trandator. 



— 401 — 

to count upon the support of the latter, and when they in return for 
the spiritual fetters which they have lent the state to bind the people, 
betake themselves to the protection of the state's bayonets. Reli- 
gion can never sink so low as when she is in such a manner raised to 
a religion of state, her last claim to innocence is then vitiated, and 
she becomes as brazenly proud as a declared concubine. Of course, 
more homage and assurances of reverence are then made her, she 
every day celebrates new conquests in gleaming processions, where 
even generals who once served under Bonaparte bear torches, the 
proudest spirits swear fidelity to her banner, day by day unbelievers 
are converted and baptized — but all this pouring on of water butters 
no parsnips, and the new recruits of the religion of state are like 
those of Falstaff — they fill the state. As for self-sacrifice no one 
even speaks of such a thing, the missionaries with their tracts and 
books travel about like commercial agents with their samples — there 
is no longer any clanger in the business, and all goes on in a regular 
mercantile economical form. 

Only so long as religions are rivals and more persecuted than per- 
secutors, are they noble and worthy of honor, and only then do we 
find inspiration sacrifice, martyrs and palms. How beautiful, how 
holy and lovely, how strangely sweet was the Christianity of the 
early ages while it as yet resembled its divine Founder in the heroism 
of suffering! Then there was still the legend of a god, all their 
own, who, in the form of a gentle youth, wandered under the palms 
of Palestine and preached human love, and set forth those doctrines 
of freedom and of equality, which at a later day were recognised as 
true by the reason of the greatest thinkers, and which as a French 
gospel inspired our age. But let any one compare that religion of 
Christ with the different Christianities which have been formed in 
different countries as religions of state — for instance, the Roman 
Apostolic Catholic Church, or even that Catholicism without poetry 
which we see ruling as " High Church of England," that dismal, 
crumbling skeleton of faith from which all fresh life has departed ! 
The monopoly of system is as injurious to religions as to trades, 
they are only strong and energetic by free competition, and they will 
again bloom up in their primitive purity and beauty, so soon as the 
political equality of the Lord's service, or so to speak, so soon as the 
trades-freedom of the divinities is introduced. 

The noblest minded men in Europe have long since asserted that 
this is the only means to preserve religion from an utter overthrow ; 
but its present servants would sooner sacrifice the altar itself than 

34* 



— 402 — 

the least thing which is sacrificed on it; just as the nobility would 
sooner give up to utter destruction the throne and the illustrious 
Highness seated thereon, than that he should seriously give up the 
most improper of his proper privileges. But is the affected interest 
for throne and altar only a mocking show played off before the people ? 
He who has been behind the scenes and peeped into the mysteries 
of the business, knows that the priests do not so much as the laity 
respect that God, whom they, for their own profit and at will knead 
from bread and words, and that the nobility respect the king much 
less than a serf would have them do, and that they in their hearts, 
scorn and despise even that royalty for which they in public manifest 
so much honor, and seek to awaken respect in others ; in fact, they 
resemble those people who exhibit for money to the gaping public in 
booths on the market place, a Hercules, or a giant, or a dwarf, or a 
savage, or a fire-eater, or some other remarkable man of whom they 
praise the strength, size, bravery and invulnerability ; or if he is a 
dwarf, his wisdom. All this they do with the most incredible readi- 
ness of speech, blowing at times their trumpet, and wearing a gayly 
colored jacket, while in their hearts they laugh at the ready faith of 
the staring people, and mock the poor be-praised subject, who by 
dint of daily intercourse has become very uninteresting to them, 
and whose weaknesses and whose arts acquired by training, they 
understand only too accurately. 

Whether the blessed Lord will long suffer the priests to pass off a 
bug-bear for him, and make money by the show is more than I 
know; — at least it would cause me no surprise if I should some day 
read in the Hamburg Impartial Correspondent, that the old Jehovah 
warns every one against giving credit in his name to any one, no 
matter who he be, or even to his own son. But I am convinced — 
and time will show it — that there will come a day, when kings will 
no longer submit to be the show-puppets of their high-born despisers, 
when they will burst loose from etiquette, and break down the 
marble booths in which they are shown. Then they will disdainfully 
cast aside the shining frippery* intended to impose upon the people, 
the red mantle which terrified, in such a headsman-like manner, the 
diamond tiara which was pulled over their ears that they might not 
hear the voices of the people, the golden rod given as a sham sign of 
supremacy into their hands — and the kings set free will become free 

* Plunder" in the original, meaning frippery, lumber, trash, baggage and also plunder. 
The same word is used in the same senses in the Western United States. "So Tom got 
Tudy and all her plunder." — Crockett's Almanac [Note by Translator. 



— 403 — 

as other men, and walk freely among them, and feel free, and marry 
free, and express their opinions freely, and that will be the emanci- 
pation of monarchs. 



CHAPTER XT. 



But what are the aristocrats to do when they have been robbed 
of their crowned means of subsistence, when kings are a special pro- 
perty of the people, maintaining an honorable and stable govern- 
ment according to the will of the people- — the only source of all 
power? What will the priests do when kings perceive that a little 
consecrated oil cannot make any human head guillotine-proof, just 
as the people on their part learn from day to day, that no one can 
grow fat on sacramental wafers ? Well, of course nothing will then 
remain for the aristocracy and clergy, save to join hands, and cabal 
and intrigue against the new order of things in this world. 

Yain efforts ! The age like a fiery giantess tranquilly advances, 
giving no heed to the chatter of the snappish priestlings and lord- 
lings down below. How they howl whenever one of them has burnt 
his snout on the foot of the giantess, or when she has trodden un- 
wittingly upon a head or two, so that the dark reactionary poison 
spirts forth ! Then their vindictiveness turns all the more bitterly 
against single children of the age, and powerless against the mass, 
they seek to assuage their cowardly spark of spirit on individuals. 

Ah! we must confess that many a poor child of the age feels none 
the less the stabs which he receives in the dark, from lurking lords and 
priests, and oh ! though a glory gathers around the wounds of the 
conqueror, yet they still bleed and smart ! It is a strange martyr- 
dom, that which such conquerors endure in our days, and one which 
cannot be done away with by bold confession, as in those early 
ages when the martyrs found a speedy scaffold, or the burning pile 
with its wild hurrahs! The spirit of martyrdom to sacrifice all 
earthly things for a heavenly jest, is still the same as ever; but it 
has lost much of its deepest cheerfulness of faith, it has become 
rather a resigned endurance, a firm holding out, a lifelong dying, and 
it even happens that in cold gray hours even the holiest martyrs are 
assailed by doubts. There is nothing so terrible as hours like those 
wherein Marcus Brutus began to doubt the reality of that virtue 
for which he had suffered all things. And, ah ! he was a Roman who 



— 404 — 

lived it tLe palmy days of the Stoa ; but we are of modern softer 
stuff, and withal we witness the successful course of a philosophy, 
which grants to any inspiration whatever only a relative significance, 
and thus in itself annihilates it, or at any rate, neutralises it into a 
self-conscious Don Quixotery. 

The cool, calm, cunning philosophers ! How compassionately they 
smile on the self-torture and mad freaks of a poor Don Quixote, yet 
with all their school- wisdom do not perceive that that Don Quixotery 
is the most laudable thing in life, yes, life itself, and that it inspires 
to bolder effort the whole world, and all in it which philosophises, 
plays, plants and gapes ! For the great mass of the people, with the 
philosophers, is, without knowing it, nothing but a colossal Sancho 
Panza who, despite all his sober dread of whippings and homely 
wisdom, still follows the knight in all his dangerous adventures, 
lured by the promised reward in which he believes, because he longs 
for it, but still more attracted by the mystic power which enthusiasm 
always exerts on the masses — as we see in all political and religious 
revolutions, and it may be, also, daily in the smallest events. 

Thus, for example, you, dear reader, are in spite of yourself the 
Sancho Panza of the insane poet, whom you follow through the 
erratic mazes of this book — it may be while shaking your head mis- 
givingly — but whom you still follow. 



CHAPTER XYI. 



Str&fge! The Life and Deeds of the Sagacious Knight Don 
Quixote de la Mancha, written by Don Miguel de Cervantes Saa- 
vedra, was the first book which I read after I had attaiued a tolerably 
boy age of discretion, and had become to a certain degree familiar with 
the nature of letters. I can well remember the bit of leisure time, 
when I early one morning stole away from home, and hastened to the 
Court Garden, that I might read Don Quixote without being dis- 
turbed. It was a beautiful May-day, the blooming Spring lay lurking 
in the silent morning light, listening to the sweet praises of her 
flatterer the nightingale, and the bird sang so softly and caressingly, 
with such melting enthusiasm, that the most shamefaced buds sprang 
into life, and the love-longing grass and the sun-rays quivering in 
perfume, kissed more hurriedly, and trees and flowers trembled for 
sheer rapture. But I sat myself down on an old mossy stoue-bench in 



— 405 — 

the so-called " walk of sighs," and solaced my little heart with the 
great adventures of the daring knight. In my childish uprightness 
of heart, I took it all in sober earnest, and ridiculously as the poor 
hero was treated by luck, I still thought that it was a matter of 
course, and must be so, the being laughed at as well as being 
wounded, and that troubled me sadly as I sympathised with it all in 
my soul. I was a child, and knew nothing of the irony which God 
had twined into his world as he created it — and I could have found it 
in my heart to weep the bitterest tears, when the noble knight, for 
all his heroic courage received only ingratitude and blows ; and as I, 
who was as yet unpractised in reading, pronounced every word 
aloud, it was possible for birds and trees, brook and flowers to hear 
everything with me, and as such innocent beings of nature knew as 
little as children of the irony of the great world, they took it all for 
sober earnest, and wept with me over the sorrows of the poor knight; 
even a worn-out old oak sighed deeply, and a water-fall shook more 
rapidly his white beard and seemed to scold at the wickedness of the 
world. We felt that the heroic will of the knight, was not the less 
worthy of admiration, when the lion turned tail on him without 
wishing to fight, and that his deeds were the more praiseworthy in 
proportion to the weakness and meagreness of his frame, the brittle- 
ness of his armor, and the worthlessness of his palfrey. We despised 
the base mob who treated him with such thrashing rudeness, and 
still more that mob of a higher rank, which, ornamented with gay 
silk attire, aristocratic phrase and ducal titles, scorned a man who 
was in strength of soul so immeasurably their superior. Dulcinea's 
Knight rose higher in my estimation, and gained more and more in 
my love, the more I read in that wondrous book— and that I did 
every day in the same garden, so that by the Autumn I had con- 
cluded the story — and never, in all my life, shall I forget the day on 
which I read of the sorrowful combat wherein the knight was so 
shamefully subdued ! 

It was a gloomy day, hideous clouds swept along the grey heaven, 
the yellow leaves fell painfully from the trees, heavy tears Aung on 
the last flowers, which fading in sorrow sunk their dying heads, the 
nightingales had 'long been silent, the image of all things passing 
away stared at me still and deathlike on every side, — and my head 
was all but broken as I read how the noble knight lay bewildered 
and crushed on the ground, and without removing his vizor, spoke 
with weak and sickly voice to the victor as though from the grave : 
I Dulcinea is the fairest woman in the world, and I am the most 



— 406 — 

unfortunate Knight on earth, but it is not fit that my weakness 
should give the lie to this truth — so on with thy lance, Knight!" 

Ah! this gleaming Knight of the silver moon, who conquered the 
bravest and noblest man in the world, was a disguised barber ! 



CHAPTER XVII. 



That was all long, long ago. Many fresh springs have bloomed 
since then, but they were all wanting in their greatest charm, for 
alas ! I no longer believe in the sweet falsehoods of the nightingale, 
the flatterer of Spring, I know how quickly its bloom passes away, 
and when I see the latest rosebuds, I see them blooming forth glow- 
ing with pain, growing pale and scattering in the wind. On every 
hand I perceive a winter in disguise. 

But in my breast that flaming love still blooms which rises full of 
longing over the whole earth and sweeps dreamily and wildly, through 
the yawning realms of heaven, is struck back by the cold stars, 
sinking again to this little ball of earth, and which with sighs and 
shouts of exultation must confess that in all creation there is nothing 
more beautiful or better than the heart of man. This love is Inspi- 
ration, ever of a divine nature whether her deeds be of folly or of 
wisdom. And so it happened, that the little boy by no means lav- 
ished those tears in vain, which he shed over the sorrows of the mad 
knight, any more, indeed, than the youth did in later years, when he 
many a night in his narrow study, wept over the death of the holiest 
heroes of liberty' — over King Agis of Sparta, over Caius and Tibe- 
rius Gracchus of Rome, over Jesus of Jerusalem, and over Robes- 
pierre and Saint Just of Paris. Now that I have donned the toga 
virilis, and must myself be a man, there is an end to weeping, and 
the business in hand is to act like a man, after the manner of great 
predecessors,- and if God so wills to be wept in turn in future 
years by boys and youths. Yes — these are the ones on whom we 
may count in this cold age ; for they will be inspired by the gloomy 
breath which is wafted to them from ancient lore, and it is thus that 
they appreciate the hearts of flame of the present age. Youth is 
unselfish in thought and in feeling, and, therefore, thinks and feels 
the truth most deeply, and is not backward when a bold participa- 
tion in faith or deed is called for. Older people are selfish and 
small-souled ; they think more of the interest of their money than of 
the interest of mankind ; they let their little boat swim calmly along 



— 407 — 

in the gutter of life, troubling themselves but little as to the sailer 
who on the high seas fights the billows, or they creep with sticky 
obstinacy to the summit of a mayoralty, or to the presidency of a club, 
and shrug their shoulders at the images of heroes which the storm 
cast down from the pillars of renown, telling, perhaps, meanwhile, how 
they too, when young, also ran their heads against the wall, but that 
they afterwards made friends with the wall because the wall was the 
Absolute, that which was appointed so to be, the existing in and for 
itself, that which because it is, is also reasonable, and that, therefore, 
he is unreasonable who will not endure a sublimely reasonable unde- 
niably existing, firmly grounded Absolutism. Alas ! these rejectors 
and challengers, who philosophise us into a mild servitude, are always 
more worthy of regard than the rejected, who, in the defence of 
despotism, never take stand on the reasonable ground of reason, but 
strong in their familiarity with history, defend it as a right of 
prescription and custom with which men have gradually grown fami- 
liar in the course of time, and which is now legally and equitably 
impregnable. 

Perhaps, you are in the right, and I am only a Don Quixote, and 
the reading of all manner of strange books has turned my xiead as 
the Knight of La Mancha's was turned, and Jean Jacques .Rous- 
seau was my Amadis de Gaul, Mirabeau was my Koldan or Agra- 
manto, and I have studied too deeply in the heroic deeds of the 
French Paladins, and of the Round Table of the National Conven- 
tion. It is true that my madness and the fixed ideas which I have 
gathered from those books are of a diametrically different descrip- 
tion from the monomania and madness of the Manchan. He was 
desftous of restoring decaying chivalry to its pristine splendor, while 
I, on the contrary, would utterly destroy all that there is as yet 
remaining from those days ; and we, consequently work with views 
at utter variance. My colleague regarded wind-mills as giants — I, 
however, in the braggart giants of the day see only noisy wind-mills ; 
he thought that leathern wine-sacks were mighty magicians, while I, 
in our cotemporary enchanters, see nothing but leather-headed wine- 
sacks ; he took beggarly pot-houses for castles, ass-drivers tor cava- 
liers, low prostitutes for court-ladies — while I take our castles for 
mere inns for blackguards, our knights for ass-drivers, our court- 
ladies for common whores, and as he mistook a puppet-show for the 
deeds of a state, so do I regard our state deeds as mere puppet- 
comedies ; yet just as bravely as the bold Knight of La Mancha do 
T let drive into the wooden trash. Ah ! such a heroic deed often 



— 408 — 

costs me as much as it did him, and I must like him often suffer 
much for the honor of my lady. If I would only be false to her from 
fear or base avarice, I might live comfortably in this absolute exist- 
ing reasonable world, and I could lead some lovely Maritornes to 
the altar, and be blessed by sleek magicians and banquet with noble 
ass-drivers, and beget harmless novels and the like base little slaves ! 
Instead of that, adorned with the three colors of my lady, I must 
constantly be taking my place on the combatting ground, and dash 
onward through fearful toil and tumult — and I fight my way 
through no victory which does not also cost me some heart's blood 
By day and night I am in extremity, for those enemies are so treach- 
erous, that many whom I long ago struck down to death, still give 
themselves the guise of living forms, and changing into every shape, 
weary and disgust me by day and by night. How many sufferings 
have I endured through these wretched ghosts ! Where love 
bloomed for me, they stole in, the false stealthy spectres, and broke 
even the most innocent buds. Everywhere, and most unexpectedly, 
I found on the ground their silvery trace of slime, and unless I 
beware I may slip on it to my destruction in the house of the nearest 
and dearest love. You may laugh, and regard such anxious feeling 
as to idle phantoms as the delusions of a Don Quixote. But ima- 
gined woes pain none the less, and if one believes that he has drunk 
hemlock, he may waste away, and at least, certainly will not fatten 
on the thought. And it is a slander to say, that I have grown fat 
on. it, at least, I have as yet gained no fat sinecure, though I have 
the talent which would qualify me for one. As for fat, my 
fatality drives every trace of it from me.* I fancy that every means 
has been taken to keep me lean ; when I hungered they fed me with 
snakes ; when I thirsted they gave me wormwood to drink, and they 
poured hell into my heart till I wept poison and sighed fire. Yes — 
they stole by night into my very dreams — and there I see horrible 
spectres, the noble lackey faces with gnashing teeth, the threatening 
bauker noses, the deadly eyes glaring from cowls, the white ruffled 
hands with gleaming knives. • 

Even the* old lady who lives next to me, my neighbor through the 
wall, thinks that I am insane, and declares that I talk the maddest 
stuff in my sleep, and that last night she distinctly heard me call out 
that, " Dulcinea is the fairest woman in the world, and I am the 
most unfortunate Knight on earth, but it is not fit that my weakness 
should give the lie to this truth — so on with thy lance, Knight!" 

* Auch is von dem Fett der Vetterschaft nichts an mir zu verspuren. 



- 409 — 



POSTSCRIPT. 



(NOVEMBER, 1830.) 



I do not know what the peculiar feeling of reverence was, which im- 
pelled me to modify even the most trivial of several expressions in the 
foregoing pages, and which on a subsequent reading appeared to be 
rather too harsh. The manuscript had already become as yellow as 
a corpse, and I could not persuade myself to mutilate it. Every- 
thing which has been written for years, seems to have an inherent 
right to remain uninjured — even these pages, which to a certain degree 
belong to a dark past. For they were written nearly a year before 
the third Hegira of the Bourbons, at a time which was harsher 
than the harshest phrase, a time when it seemed as if the battle for 
liberty might yet be delayed for a century. It was to say the least, 
a matter for critical and nice reflection, when we saw our knightly 
nobility looking so confident — how they had their faded coats of 
arms freshly painted, how they tourneyed with shield and spear at 
Munich and Potsdam, and how they sat so proudly on their high 
steeds as though they would ride to Quepllinburg to have themselvs 
retouched by Gottfried Basse. 

Still more insufferable were the triumphant and treacherous eyes 
of our priests, who hid their long ears so slyly under their cowls, 
that we continually anticipated the most deadly wiles. No one could 
know beforehand that the noble knights would shoot so wretchedly 
wide of the mark, and generally from an ambuscade, or at least 
in galloping away with averted heads, like flying Bashkirs. Just as 
little could one know beforehand that the serpent-like sagacity of our 
priests could be so brought to shame — ah! it is enough to awaken one's 
pity to see how stupidly they use their best poison, and how in their 
rage they throw the arsenic in great lumps at our heads, instead of 
sprinkling it by the ounce and amiably in our soup ; how they rum- 
mage among the long forgotten children's clothes of their enemies 
to discover some obsolete baby wrappings from which to nose out 
trouble, how they even rake the fathers of their enemies out of their 
graves to see if they perhaps were circumcised — oh the fools ! who 
imagine that they have discovered that the lion belongs to the feline 

35 



— 410 — 

race, and with this natural historical discovery go hissing about so 
long, that finally the great cat exemplifies the ex ungue leonem on their 
own flesh ! Oh ! the obscure wights upon whom no light shines until 
they hang in person on the lamp post ! With the entrails of an ass 
would I string my lyre that I might worthily sing them — the shorn 
blockheads ! 

A mighty joy seizes on me! While I sit and write, music sounds 
ander my window, and in the elegiac grimness of the long drawn out 
melody, I recognise that Marseilles hymn with which the beautiful 
Barbaroux and his companions greeted the city of Paris, that rans 
des vaches of liberty, whose tones gave the Swiss in the Tuileries the 
homesickness, that triumphant death song of the Gironde — the old 
nweet cradle song. 

What a song ! It shudders through me with fire and joy, and 
lights up in me the glowing stars of inspiration, and the rockets of 
scorn and mockery. Yes, they shall not be wanting in the great 
fireworks of the age. Kinging fire-streams of song shall pour forth 
in bold cascades from the summit of Freedom's revels ; as the Ganges 
leaps from Himalaya! And thou dear Satyra, daughter of the just 
Themis and of goat-footed Pan, lend me thine aid, for thou art by 
the mother's side of Titanic blood, and hatest like me the enemies of 
thy kin, the weak usurpers of Olympus. Lend me the sword of thy 
mother that I may execute the hated brood, and give me the pipes 
of thy father that I therewith, may pipe them to death. 

Already they hear the deathly piping and panic fears seize them, 
and they again take to flight in bestial forms as of old, when we piled 
Pelion upon Ossa. 

Aux armes citoyens J 

They did great injustice to us poor Titans, when they blamed the 
dark ferocity with which we raged upward in that storming of 
heaven — ah ! down there in Tartarus it was terrible and dark ; we 
heard there, only the howls of Cerberus and the rattling of chains, 
and it is pardonable if we appear somewhat savage, in comparison 
with those divinities, comme il faut, who so refined and elegant in 
manners, enjoyed in the cheerful saloons of Olympus, so much ex- 
quisite nectar and so many sweet concerts given by the Muses. 

I can writejio more, for the music under my window intoxicates ' 
my head, and still more forcibly am I moved by the refrain. 

Aux armes citoyens 1 



ENGLISH FRAGMENTS. 






182 8. 



u Happy Albion ! merry Old England ! why did I leave thee?— To fly 
from the society of gentlemen, and to be among a pack of blackguards. 
the only one who lives and acts with consciousness ?" 

" Honorable People," by W. Alexis. 

The " English Fragments" were partly written two years ago for 
the " Universal Political Annals," which I at that time published 
with Lindnek, to supply a want of the time, and believing them to 
be appropriate, I have added them as a completion of the " Pictures 
of Travel." 

I trust that the amiable reader will not misapprehend my object 
in giving these English Fragments. Perhaps, I may, at a proper 
time, supply further contributions of the same nature. Oar litera- 
ture is by no means too richly provided with them. Though England 
has been frequently described by our novelists, Willibald Alexis 
is the only one who has set forth her local peculiarities and costumes 
with true outline and color. I believe that he was never in the 
country, and knows its physiognomy only by that strange intuition 
which renders a personal examination of the reality needless to a 
poet. In like manner, I myself, wrote eleven years ago, " William 
Ratcliff," to which I here the more emphatically refer, since it not 
only contains an accurate picture of England, but also the germ of 
my later observations of the country which I had not then seen. 
The piece may be found in the 

"Tragedies, with a Lyrical Intermezzo, by Henry Heine. 
Berlin, 1823, published by F. Duemmler." 

As for books of travel in England, I am confident, that with the 
exception of those of Archenholtz and Gosde, thei » are none which 
set forth matters as they really are there, which can be compared 
to a work published this year by Frankh, in Munich. I refer to 
" Letters of a Dead Man. A Fragmentary Diary, k?pt in Eng- 
land, Wales, Ireland and France, in the years 1828 and 1829." 

It is moreover in many other respects an admirable book, and fully 

deserves the praise which Goethe and Yarnhagen Von Ense have 

lavished on it in the Berlin Annuals of Scientific Criticism. 

Henry Heine. 
Hamburg, Nov. 15, 1830. 

(411) 



— 412 — 
U 

DIALOGUE ON THE THAMES. 

The sallow man stood near me on the deck, as I gazed 

on the green shores of the Thames, while in every corner of my soul 
the nightingales awoke to life. " Land of Freedom !" I cried, — " I 
greet thee! — Hail to thee, Freedom, young sun of the renewed 
world ! Those older suns. Love and Faith are withered and cold, 
and can no longer light nor warm us. The ancient myrtle woods 
which were once all too full, are now deserted, and only timid turtle- 
doves nestle amid the soft thickets. The old cathedrals once piled 
in towering height by an arrogantly pious race, which fain would 
force its faith into heaven are brittle, and their gods have ceased to 
believe in themselves. Those divinities are worn out, and our age 
lacks the imagination to shape new. Every power of the human 
breast now tends to a love of Libekty, and Liberty is, perhaps, the 
religion of the modern age. And it is a religion not preached to the 
rich, but to the poor, and it has in like manner its Evangelists, its 
martyrs, and its Iscariots !" 

"Young enthusiast," said the sallow man, " you will not find what 
you seek. You may be in the right in believing that Liberty is a 
new religion which will spread itself over all the woild. But as 
every race of old, when it received Christianity did so according to 
its requirements and its peculiar character, so, at present, every 
country adopts from the new religion of liberty only that which is 
in accordance with its local needs and national character. 

"The English are a domestic race, living a limited, peaceable 
family life, and the Englishman seeks in the circle of those con- 
nected with and pertaining to him, that easy state of mind which 
is denied to him through his innate social incapacity. The English- 
man is, therefore, contented with that liberty which secures his most 
personal rights and guards his body, his property, and his conjugal 
relations, his religion, and even his whims, in the most unconditional 
manner. No one is freer in his home than an Englishman, and to 
use a celebrated expression he is king and bishop between his four 
stakes, and there is much truth in the common saying, that ' my 
house is my castle.' 

"If the Englishman has the greatest need of personal freedom, the 
Frenchman, in case of need, can dispense with it, if we only grant 
him that portion of universal liberty known as equality. The Frenct 






— 413 — 

are not a domestic but a social race, they are no friends to a silent 
Ute-a te'e, which they call une conversation Anrjlaise, they 1 un gossip- 
ing about from the cafe* to the casino, and from the casino to the 
salons, their light champagne-blood and in-born talent for company, 
drives them to social life, whose first and last principle, yes, 
whose very soul is equality. The development of the social princi- 
ple in France necessarily involved that of equality, and if the ground 
of the Revolution should be sought in the budget ; it is none the less 
true that its language and tone were drawn from those wits of low 
degree who lived in the salons of Paris, apparently on a footing of 
equality with the high noblesse, and who were now and then 
reminded, it may have been, by a hardly perceptible, yet not on that 
account less aggravating, feudal smile, of the great and ignominious ine- 
quality which lay between them. And when the canaille roturiSre took 
the liberty of beheading that high noblesse, it was done less to inherit 
their property than their ancestry, and to introduce a noble equality 
in place of a vulgar inequality. And we are the better authorized to 
believe that this striving for equality was the main principle of the 
revolution, since the French speedily found themselves so happy and 
contented under the dominion of their great Emperor, who fully 
appreciating that they were not yet of age, kept all their freedom 
within the limits of his powerful guardianship, permitting them only 
the pleasure of a perfect and admirable equality. 

Far more patient than the Frenchman the Englishman, easily bears 
the glances of a privileged aristocracy, consoling himself with the re- 
flection, that he has a right by which it is rendered impossible to the 
others to disturb his personal comfort or his daily requirements. 
Nor does the aristocracy here make a show of its privileges as on 
the Continent. In the streets and in places of public resort in 
London, colored ribbons are only seen on women's bonnets, and gold 
and silver signs of distinction, on the dresses of lackeys. Even that 
beautiful colored livery which indicates with us military rank, is in 
England anything but a sign of honor, and as an actor after a play 
hastens to wash off the rouge, so an English officer hastens when the 
hours of active duty are over, to strip off his red coat and again 
appear like a gentleman, in the plain garb of a gentleman. Only at 
the theatre of St. James are those decorations and costumes, which 
were raked from the off-scourings of the middle ages, of any avail. 
There we may see the ribbons of orders of nobility, there the stars 
g'itter, silk knee-breeches and satin trains rustle, golden spurs and 
Old fashioned French styles of expression clatter, there the knight 

35* 



— 414 — 

struts and the lady spreads herself. But what does a free English- 
man care for the court comedy of St. James ! so long as it does 
not trouble him, and so long as no one interferes when he plays 
comedy in like manner in his own house, making his lackeys kneel 
before him, or plays with the garter of a pretty cook-maid? — "honi 
soit qui mal y pense!" 

" As for the Germans they need neither freedom nor equality. They 
are a speculative race, idealogists, prophets and after thinkers, 
dreamers who only live in the past and in the future, and who have 
no present. Englishmen and Frenchmen have a present — with them, 
every day has its field of action, its opposing element, its history. 
The German has nothing for which to battle, and when he began to 
realize that there might be things worth striving for, his philosophi- 
sing wiseacres taught him to doubt the existence of such things. It 
cannot be denied that the Germans love liberty.. But it is in a 
different manner from other people. The Englishman loves liberty 
as his lawful wife, and if he does not treat her with remarkable 
tenderness, he is still ready in case of need to defend her like a man, 
and woe to the red coated rascal who forces his way to her bed- 
room — let him do so as a gallant or as a catch poll. The French- 
man loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her, he is a flame, he 
casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant protestations, 
he will fight for her to the death, he commits for her sake a thousand 
follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his old 
grandmother." 

Men are strange beings ! We grumble in our fatherland, every 
stupid thing, every contrary trifle vexes us there ; like boys we 
are always long to rash forth into the wide world, and when we 
finally find ourselves out in the wide world, we find it a world too wide, 
and often yearn in secret for the narrow stupidities and contrarieties 
of home ; yes, we would fain be again in the old chamber, sitting 
behind the familiar stove, making for ourselves as it were a "cubby 
house" near it, and nestling there, read the " German General Adver- 
tiser.'' 1 So it was with me in my journey to England. Scarcely 
had I lost sight of the German shore ere there awoke in me a curious 
after-love for the German night-caps and forest-like wigs which I had 
just left in discontent, and when the fatherland faded from my eyes 
I found it again in my heart. 

And therefore it may be that my voice quivered in a somewhat 
lower key as I replied to the sallow man: "Dear sir — do not scold 
the Germans !" If they are dreamers, still many of them have dreamed 



— 415 — 

sue!? beautiful dreams, that I would hardly incline to change them 
for fiie waking realities of our neighbors,** Since we all sleep and 
dream, we can perhaps dispense with freedom, for our tyrants also 
sleep, and only dream their tyranny. We only awoke once ; when 
the Catholic Komans robbed us of our dream freedom : then we 
acted and conquered and laid us down again and dreamed. 0, sir ! 
do pot mock our dreamers, for now and then they speak, like som- 
nambulists, wondrous things in sleep, and their words become, the 
seeds of freedom. No one can foresee the turn which things may 
take. The splenetic Briton, weary of his wife, may put a halter 
round her neck and sell her in Smithfield. The flattering French- 
man may perhaps be untrue to his beloved bride and abandon her, 
and singing, dance after the court dames (courtisanes) of his royal 
palace (palais royal). But the German will never turn his old grand- 
mother quite out of doors, he will always find a place for her by his 
fire side, where she can tell his listening children, her legends. 
Should freedom ever — which God forbid — vanish from the entire 
world, a German dreamer would discover her again in his dreams." 

While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along 
the stream, the sun had set and his last rays lit up the hospital at 
Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists 
of two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill 
crowned with a pretty little tower, from which one can behold those 
passing by. On the water, the throng of vessels became denser and 
denser, and I wondered at the adroitness with which the larger 
avoided contact. While passing many a sober and friendly face 
nodded greetings — faces whom we had never seen before, and were 
never to see again. We sometimes came so near, that it was possible 
to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart swells at 
the sight of so many swelling sails, and we feel strangely moved 
when the confused hum and far off dancing-music, and the deep 
voices of sailors resound from the shore. But the outlines of all 
things vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening 
mist, and there only remained visible a forest of masts, rising long 
and bare above it. 

The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on 
high, as though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. 
And still gazing on high, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and 
said in a tone as though secret thoughts involuntarily became 
words — "Freedom and equality! they are not to be found on earth 
below nor in heaven above. The stars on high are not alike, for one 



— 416 — 

is greater and brighter than the other ; none of them wander free, all 
obey a prescribed and iton-like law — there is slavery in heaven as on 
earth. !" 

"There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our travelling. com- 
panions, as he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral 
gloomy dream above the cloud-covered London. 



2. 

LONDON. 

I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the 
astonished spirit, I have seen it and am still astonished — and still 
there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and 
amid them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their 
motley passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger and of 
hatred — I mean London. 

Send a philosopher to London but for your life, no poet ! Send a 
philosopher there, and stand him at a corner of Cheapside, where he 
will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipzig fair ; and 
as the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new 
thoughts rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon 
the face of the waters will breathe upon him; the most hidden 
secrets of social harmony will be suddenly revealed to him, he will 
hear the pulse of the world beat audibly, and see it visibly — for, if 
London is the right hand of the world — its active mighty right hand 
— then we may regard that route which leads from the Exchange to 
Downing Street, as the world's pyloric artery. 

But never send a poet to London ! This downright earnestness of 
all things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this 
troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated London, smothers 
the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a 
German poet thither— a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a 
ragged beggar-woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop — 
why, then, at least, he will find things going right badly with him. 
and he will be hustled about on every side, or, perhaps, be knocked 
over with a mild " God damn!"* God damn!— damn the knocking 

* The English or American reader has doubtless heard the expression, "God damn 
it!" and also "Damnation!" but I am not aware that the interjection quoted hy Heine 
is used in cur language. Popular opinion in A'Jierica ascribes it exclusively to Geimans, 



ii 






— 417 — 

about and pushing ! I see at a glance that these people have enough 
to do. They live on a grand scale, and though food and clothes are 
dearer with them than with us, they must still be better fed and 
clothed than we are — as gentility requires. Moreover, they have enor- 
mous debts, yet occasionally in a vain-glorious, mood they make ducks 
and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to box about for their 
pleasure, give their kings a handsome douceur into the bargain- — and, 
therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for such expendi- 
ture. By day and by night he must tax his brain to discover new 
machines, and he sits and reckons in the sweat of his brow, and runs 
and rushes without much looking around, from -the Docks to the 
Exchange, and from the Exchange to the Strand, and, therefore, it 
is quite pardonable, if he, when a poor German poet, gazing into a 
print-shop window, stands bolt in his way on the corner of Cheapside, 
should knock the latter sideways with a rather rough " God damn !" 

But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at Cheapside 
corner, was that of the French crossing the Beresina. 

And when I, jolted out of my gazing, looked again on the raging 
street, where a parti-colored coil of men, women and children, horses, 
stage-coaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creak- 
ing along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a 
Beresina Bridge where every one presses on in mad haste to save his 
scrap of life, where the daring rider stamps down the poor pedes- 
trian, where every one who falls is lost forever ; where the best 
friends rush, without feeling, over each other's corpses, and where 
thousands in the weakness of death, and bleeding, grasp in vain at 
the planks of the bridge, and are shot down into the icy grave of death. 

How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany ! 
With what dreaming comfort, in what Sabbath-like repose all glides 
along here! Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses 
shine in the quiet sunshine, swallows flit over the flag-stones, fat 
court-councillor-esses smile from the windows, while along the echo- 
ing streets there is room enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, 
and for men to stand at ease and chat about the theatre, and bow 
deeply— oh, how deeply ! — when some small aristocratic scamp or 
vice scamp, with colored ribbons on his shabby coat, or some court- 
marshal* struts along, as if in judgment, graciously returning salu- 
tations ! 

who have but a limited familiarity with English. Many eminent French writers also 
seem to labor under an erroneous impression, that a mysterious expletive written by 
th» m. " Goddom !" or ' : Godam !" is used >n English.— [i\'o<e by Ti-anslator.] 
* Hofmarschalkchen 



— 418 — 

I had made up my mind in advance, not to be astonished at that im- 
mensity of London of which I had heard so much. But I had as little 
success as the poor school-boy, who determined beforehand not to feel 
the whipping which he was to receive. The facts of the case were, that 
he expected to get the usual blows with the usual stick in the usual 
way on the back, whereas he received a most unusually severe lick- 
ing on an unusual place with a cutting switch. I anticipated great 
palaces and saw nothing but mere small houses. But their very 
uniformity and their limitless extent impress the soul wonderfully. 

These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal 
smoke, are all of an uniform color, that is to say of a brown olive 
green, and are all of the same style of building, generally two or three 
windows wide, three stories high and finished above with small red 
tiles, which remind one of newly extracted bleeding teeth, while the 
broad and accurately squared streets which these houses form, seem 
to be bordered by endlessly long barracks. This has its reason in 
the fact that every English family, though it consist of only two per- 
sons, must still have a house to itself for its own castle, and rich 
speculators to meet the demand, build wholesale, entire streets of 
these dwellings which they retail singly. In the principal streets of 
the city where the business of London is most at home, where old 
fashioned buildings are mingled with the new, and where the fronts 
of the houses are covered with signs, yards in length, generally 
gilt, and in relief, this characteristic uniformity is less striking — 
the less so indeed because the eye of the stranger is incessantly 
caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed for sale in the win- 
dows. And these articles do not merely produce an effect, because 
the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which he manu- 
factures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp and 
every boot, every tea kettle and every woman's dress, shines out so 
iuvitingly and so "finished" There is also a peculiar charm in the 
art of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of 
the English shops ; even the most commonplace necessaries of life, 
appear in a startling magic light through this artistic power of 
setting forth everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food 
attract us by the new light in which they are placed, even uncooked 
fish lie so delightfully dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales 
attracts us ; raw meat lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored 
porcelain plates, garlanded about with parsley — yes everything seems 
painted, reminding us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of 
Franz Mieris. But the human beings whom we see are not so 



— 419 — 

cheerful as in the Dutch paintings for they sell tHe jolliest wares 
with the most serious faces, and the cut and color of their clothes is 
as uniform as that of their houses. 

On the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End — 
"the west end of the town," — and where the more aristocratic and less 
occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more domi- 
nant ; yet here there are very long and very broad streets where all 
the houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as 
regards their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, as in 
all the better class of houses in London, the windows of the first 
etage (or second story) are adorned with iron barred balconies, and 
also on the rez de chausse'e there is a black railing protecting the 
entrance to certain subterranean apartments. In this part of the 
city there are also great "squares," where rows of houses like those 
already described form a quadrangle, in whose centre, there is a 
garden enclosed by an iron railing and containing some statue or 
other. In all of these places and streets, the eye is never shocked 
by the dilapidated huts of misery. Everywhere we are stared 
down on by wealth and respectability, while crammed away in 
retired lanes and dark damp alleys, poverty dwells with her rags 
and her tears. 

The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, 
and does not chaDce right into the regular quarters of the multitude, 
sees little or nothing of the fearful misery existing there. Only here 
and there at the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman 
with a suckling babe at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes. 
Perhaps if those eyes are still beautiful, we glance into them and 
are shocked at the world of wretchedness visible within. The com- 
mon beggars are old people, generally blacks, who stand at the 
corners of the streets, cleaning pathways — a very necessary thing in 
muddy London— and ask for " coppers" in reward. It is in the 
dusky twilight that Poverty with her mates Yice and Crime glide 
forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more anxiously since 
their wretchdness there contrasts more cruelly with the pride of 
wealth which glitters everywhere, only Hunger sometimes drives 
them at noon-day from their dens, and then they stand with silent, 
speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hur- 
ries along, busy and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who like a sur- 
feited god rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an 
aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though they 
were swarming ants, or rather a mass of baser beings, whose joys 



— 420 — 

and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. Yes — for 
over the vulgar multitude which sticks fast to the soil, soar like 
beings of a higher nature, England's nobility, to whom their little 
island is only a temporary resting place, Italy their summer garden, 
Paris their social saloon, and the whole* world their inheritance. 
They sweep along, knowing nothing of sorrow or suffering, and their 
gold is a talisman which conjures into fulfilment their wildest wish. 

Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others 
swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with 
indifferent hand a crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be 
wherewith thou moistenest it ! Thou poisonest thyself with thine 
own tears. "Well art thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to 
Vice and Crime. Outlawed criminals often bear more humanity in 
their hearts than those cool, reproachless town burghers of virtue, 
in whose white hearts, the power of evil it is true is quenched — tout 
with it, too, the power of good. I have seen women on whose cheeks 
red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I 
have seen women — I would that I saw them again ! 



3. 

THE ENGLISH. 



Under the archways of the London Exchange, every nation has 
its allotted place, and on high tablets we read the names of 
Russians, Spaniards, Swedes, Germans, Maltese, Jews, Hanseatics, 
Turks. &c. Now, however, you would seek them there in vain, for 
the men have been jostled away — where Spaniards once stood Dutch- 
men now stand, the citizens of Hansetowns have elbowed out the 
Jews, Russians are now where Turks once were, Italians are on the 
ground once held by Frenchmen — even the Germans have advanced 
a little. 

As in the London Exchange, so in the rest of the world the ancient 
tablets have remained, and men have been moved away while other 
people appear in their place, whose new heads agree very indifferently 
with the old inscriptions. The old stereotyped characteristics of 
races as we find them in learned compendiums and ale-houses, are 
no longer profitable, and can only lead us into dreary errors. As we 
during the last ten years have observed a striking change in the 
character of our western neighbors just so has there bef n since the 



— 421 — 

continent was thrown open, a corresponding metamorphosis on the 
other side of the canal. Stiff, taciturn Englishmen go pilgrim-like 
in hordes to France, there to learn to speak and move their limbs, 
and on returning, we observe with amazement that their tongues are 
loosened, they no longer have two left hands, and are no longer 
contented with beef-steak and pi urn -puddings. I myself have seen 
such an Englishman, who in Tavistock Tavern asked for some sugar 
with his cauliflowers — a heresy against the stern laws of the English 
cuisine, which nearly caused the waiter to fall flat on his back — for, 
certainly, since the days of the Roman Invasion, cauliflower was 
never cooked otherwise than by simply boiling in water, nor was it 
ever eaten with sweet seasoning. It was the self-same Englishman, 
who, although I had never seen him before, sat down opposite to me 
and began to converse so genially in French, that I could not for my 
life help telling him how delighted I was to meet, for once, an English- 
man who was not reserved towards strangers, whereupon he, without 
smiling, quite as candidly remarked that he merely talked with me 
for the sake of practice in French. 

It is amazing how the French, day by day, become more reflecting, 
deeper and more serious, while the English on the other hand strive 
to assume a light, superficial and cheerful manner; not merely in 
life but in literature. The London presses are fully busied with 
fashionable works, with romances which move in the glittering sphere 
of "high life," or mirror it, as for instance, " Almacks," or " Vivian 
Grey," " Tremaine," " The Guards," and " Flirtation." This last 
romance bears a name which would be most appropriate for the 
whole species, since it indicates that coquetry with foreign airs and 
phrases, that clumsy refinement, that heavy bumping lightness, 
that sour style of honied compliment, that ornamented coarseness, 
in a word, the entire lifeless life of those wooden butterflies, who 
flutter in the saloons of West London. 

But, on the contrary, what a literature is at present offered us by 
the French press — that real representative of French spirit and 
volition ! When their great Emperor undertook in the leisure of his 
captivity to dictate his life, to reveal the most secret solutions of the 
enigmas of his divine soul, and to change the rocks of St. Helena to 
a chair of history, from whose height, his cotemporaries should be 
judged, and latest posterity be taught, then the French themselves 
begun to employ the days of their adversity and the period of their 
political inactivity as profitably as possible. They also are now 
writing the history of their deeds, the hands which once grasped the 

36 



— 422 — 

sword are again becoming a terror to their enemies by wielding the 
pen, the whole nation is busied in publishing its memoirs,, and if it 
will follow my advice it will prepare a particular edition ad usum 
Delphini, with nicely colored engravings of the taking of the Bastile, 
and storming of the Tuileries. 

If I have above remarked, that the English of the present day are 
seeking to become light and frivolous, and endeavoring to creep into 
the monkey's skin which the French are gradually stripping off, I 
must also add that the tendency in question proceeds rather from 
the nobility and gentry, or aristocratic world, than from the citizens. 
On the contrary, the trading and working portion of the people, 
especially the merchants in the manufacturing towns, and nearly all 
the Scotch, bear the external marks of pietism — yes, I might almost 
say of puritanism, so that this blessed portion of the people contrast 
with the worldly-minded aristocrats, like the cavaliers and round- 
heads, so truthfully set forth by Scott in his novels. Those readers 
honor the Scottish bard too highly, who believe that his genius 
imitated and penetrated the outer form and inner manner of feeling 
of those two historical parties, and that it is an indication of his 
poetic greatness, that he, free from prejudice as a God in his judg- 
ment, does justice to both, and treats them with equal love. Let 
any one cast a glance into the prayer meetings of Liverpool or Man- 
chester, and then into the fashionable saloons of the West End, and 
he will plainly see that Walter Scott has simply described his own 
times, and clothed forms which are altogether modern, in dresses of 
the olden time. And if we remember that he himself from one side 
as a Scotchman, sucked in by education and national influence a 
Puritan spirit, while on the other side, as a tory who even regarded 
himself as a scion of the Stuarts, he must have been right royally 
and aristocratically inclined, and that therefore his feelings and 
thoughts must have embraced either tendency with equal love, and 
must also have been neutralised by their opposition, we can very 
readily understand his impartiality in describing the democrats and 
aristocrats of Cromwell's time, an impartiality which might well 
lead us into error if we hoped to find in his History of Napoleon, 
an equally " fair play" description of the heroes of the French 
Revolution. 

He who regards England attentively may now find daily opportu- 
nities of observing those two tendencies, the frivolous and the puri- 
tanic, in their most repulsive vigor, and with them of course their 
mutual contest. Such an • opportunity was recently manifested in 



— 423 — 

the famous suit at law of Mr. Wakefield, a gay cavalier, who, in an 
off-hand manner eloped with the daughter of the rich Mr. Turner, a 
Liverpool merchant, and married her at Gretna Green, where a 
blacksmith lives who forges the strongest sort of fetters. The 
entire head-hanging community, the whole race of the elect of the 
Lord screamed murder at such horrible conduct ; in the conventicles 
of Liverpool the vengeance of Heaven was evoked on Wakefield 
and his brother who assisted — they prayed that the. earth's abyss 
might swallow them as it once swallowed Korah, Dathan and 
Abiram, while to make celestial anger more certain, they brought 
the thunders of the King's Bench, of the Lord Chancellor, and even 
of the Upper House to bear on this profaner of the holy sacra- 
ment - while in the fashionable saloons people merely laughed 
merrily and jested in the most liberal manner, at the bold darasel- 
stealer. But the contrast of the two states of thought or feeling 
was recently shown me in the most delightful manner, as I satin the 
grand opera near two fat Manchester ladies, who visited this rendez- 
vous of the aristocratic world for the first time in their lives, and who 
could not find words strong enough to express the utter detestation 
and abhorrence which filled their hearts as the ballet began, and the 
short-skirted beautiful dancing girls exhibited their lasciviously 
graceful movements, aud fell passionately, like burning Bacchantes, 
into the arms of the male dancers who leaped towards them. The 
inspiring music, the primitive clothing of flesh colored stockinet, the 
bounds so like the exuberance of nature, all united to force the sweat 
of agony from the poor ladies — their bosoms flushed with repugnance, 
they continually heaved out in chorus u shocking I for shame! for 
shame!" and were so benumbed with horror, that they could not for 
an instant take their opera-glasses from their eyes, and consequently 
remained in that situation to the last instant when the curtain fell. 

Despite these diametrically opposed tendencies of mind and of life, 
we still find in the English people an unity in their way of thinking, 
which comes from the very fact that they are always realizing that 
they are a people by themselves ; the modern cavaliers and round- 
heads may hate and despise one another mutually and as much as 
they please, they do not for all that cease to be English ; as such 
they are at union and together, like plants which have grown out of 
the same soil, and are strangely interwoven with it. Hence the 
secret unity of the entire life and activity and intercourse of England, 
which at the first glance seems to us but a theatre of confusion and 
of contradiction. Excessive wealth and misery, orthodoxy and infi- 



— 424 — 

delity, freedom and serfdom, cruelty and mildness, honor and deceit; 
all of these incongruities in their maddest extremes, over all a gray 
misty heaven, on every side buzzing machines, reckoning, gas lights, 
chimneys, pots of porter, closed mouths, all this hangs together in 
such-wise, that we can hardly think of the one without the other, and 
that which singly, really ought to excite our astonishment or laughter, 
appears to be, when taken as a part of the whole, quite commonplace 
and serious. 

But I imagine that such would be the case everywhere, even in 
countries of which we have much more eccentric conceptions, and 
where we anticipate a much richer booty of merriment or amaze- 
ment. Our earnest longing to travel, our desire to see foreign lands, 
particularly as we feel it in early youth, generally results from an 
erroneous anticipation of extraordinary contrasts, and from that 
spiritual pleasure in masquerades, which makes us involuntarily 
expect to find the men and manner of thought of our own home, and 
to a certain degree our nearest friends and acquaintances, dis- 
guised in foreign dress and manners. If we think for example of the 
Hottentots, at once the ladies of our native town dance around in 
our imaginations, but painted black and endowed with the proper a 
posteriori developments, while our beaux esprits climb the palm-trees 
as bush-beaters ; and if we think of the North-Polanders, we see 
there also the well known faces, our aunt glides in her dog-sleigh 
over the ice road, the dry Herr Conrector lies lazy on the bear skin, 
and calmly sips his morning train-oil, Madame the inspector's wife, 
Madame the tax gatherer's lady and Madame, the wife of the 
Councillor of Infibulation gossip together and munch candles. But 
when we are really in those countries we at once observe that 
mankind has there grown up from infancy with its manners and 
modes, that people's faces harmonise with their thoughts and needs — 
yes that plants, animals, human beings and the land itself form a 
harmonious whole. 



4* 

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. 



BY WALTER SCOTT. 



Poor Walter Scott ! Hadst thou been rich thou would'st not 
have written that book, and so had'st not become a poor Walter 



— 425 — 

Scott ! But the trustees of the Constable estate met together, and 
reckoned up and ciphered, and after much subtraction and division, 
shook their heads and there remained for poor Walter Scott nothing 
but laurels and debts. Then the most extraordinary of all came to 
pass ; the singer of great deeds wished for once to try his hand at 
heroism, he made up his mind to a cessio bonoritm, the laurels of the 
great unknown were taxed to cover great and well-known debts — 
and so there came to life in hungry haste, in bankrupt inspiration, 
the Life of Napoleon, a book to be roundly paid for by the wants 
of the English people in general, and of the English ministry in 
particular. 

Praise him, the brave citizen ! praise him ye united Philistines of 
all the earth ! praise him thou beautiful shopkeeper's virtue which 
sacrificest everything to meet a note on the day when it is due — only 
do not ask of me that I praise him too ! 

Strange ! the dead emperor is even in his grave, the bane of the 
Britons, and through him, Britannia's greatest poet has lost his 
laurels ! 

He ivas Britannia's greatest poet, let people say and imagine what 
they will. It is true that the critics of his romances carped and 
cavilled at his greatness, and reproached him, that he assumed too 
much breadth in execution, that he went too much into details, that 
his great characters were only formed by the combination of a mass 
of minor traits, that he required an endless array of accessories to 
bring out his bold effects — but to tell the truth, he resembled in all 
this a millionaire, who keeps his whole property in the r -)vm of small 
specie, and who must drive up three or four wagons iuu of sacks of 
pence and farthings when he has a large sum to pay. Should any 
one complain of the ill-manners of such a style of liquidation with its 
attendant troubles of heavy lifting and hauling, and endless counting, 
he can reply with perfect truth, that no matter how he gives the 
money, he still gives it, and that he is in reality just as well able to 
pay, and quite as rich as another who owns nothing but bullion in 
bars, yes, that he even has an advantage greater than that of mere 
facility of transport, since in the vegetable market gold bars are 
useless, while every huckster woman will grab with both hands at 
pence and farthings when they are offered her. Now, all this popular 
wealth of the British poet is at an end, and he, whose change was so 
current that the Duchess and the cobbler's wife received it with the 
same interest has now become a poor Walter Scott. His destiny 
recalls the legend of the mountain elves, who, mockingly benevolent. 

36* 



— 426 — 

gave money to poor people which was bright and profitable so long 
as they spent it wisely, but which turned to mere dust when applied 
to unworthy purposes. Sack by sack we opened Walter Scott's 
new load — and lo ! instead of gleaming smiling pence there was 
nothing but idle dust, and dust again ! He was justly punished by 
those mountain elves of Parnassus, the Muses, who like all noble- 
minded women are enthusiastic Napoleonists, and who were conse- 
quently doubly enraged at the misuse of the spirit treasure which 
had been loaned. 

The value and tendency of this work of Scott's have been shown 
up in the journals of all Europe. Not only the embittered French, 
but also the astonished fellow countrymen of the author have uttered 
sentence of condemnation against it. In such a world-wide discon- 
tent the Germans must also have their share, and therefore the 
Stuttgard Literary Journal* spoke out with a fiery zeal, difficult to 
restrain within due limit, while the Berlin Animals of Scientific 
Criticism^ expressed itself in tones of cold tranquillity, and the 
critic who was the more readily swayed by .that tranquillity, the less 
he admired the hero of the book, characterises it with these admirably 
appropriate words. 

" In this narration we find neither substance nor color, harmony 
nor life. The mighty subject drags heavily along, entangled in 
superficial, not in profound perplexities, uncertain and changeable 
without any manifestation of the characteristic; no leading principle 
strikes us in its affected singularity, its violent points are nowhere 
visible, its connection is merely external, its subject matter and sig- 
nificance are hardly appreciable. In such a manner of portrayal all 
the light of history must be quenched, and itself be reduced to, not 
wonderful', but common-place stories. The unnecessary remarks 
and reflections which often intrude themselves on the subject under 
consideration are of a corresponding description. Such a watery 
transparent preparation has long been out of date in our reading 
world. The scanty pattern of a moral, applicable only to certain 
particulars is unsatisfactory. " 

I would willingly pardon poor Scott for such and even worse 
things to which the sharp witted, Berlin reviewer, Varnhagen von 
Ense gives utterance. We are all mortal and the best of us may 
once in a while write a bad book. People then say that the thing 
is below criticism and, that ends the matter. But it is really extra- 

* Stuttgarter Literaturblatt 

\ Berliner Juhrblieher fur wiasenschaftliche Critik. 



— 427 — 

ordinary that in this new work we do not find a trace of Scott's 
beautiful style. The colorless commonplace strain is sprinkled in vain 
with sundry red, green, and blue words, in vain do glittering patches 
from the poets cover the prosaic nakedness, in vain does the authoi 
rob all Noah's ark to find bestial comparisons, and in vain is the 
word of God itself cited to heighten the color of stupid thoughts. 
Stranger still is it that Walter Scott has not here succeeded in a 
single effort to bring into play his inborn talent of sketching charac- 
ters, and of catching the traits of the outer Napoleon. Walter 
Scott learned nothing from those beautiful pictures which represent 
Napoleon surrounded by his generals and statesmen, though every 
one who regards them without prejudice, must be deeply moved by 
the tragic tranquillity and antique severity of those features, which 
contrast in such fearful sublimity with the modern, excitable, pictur- 
esque faces of the day, and which seem to announce something of the 
incarnate God. But if the Scottish poet could not comprehend the 
form, how much less capable must he have been of grasping the 
character of the Emperor, and I therefore willingly pardon his blas- 
phemy of a divinity whom he never knew. And I must also forgive 
him that he regards his Wellington as a god, 'and in deifying 
him, falls into such excessive manifestations of piety, that, rich as 
he is in figures of beasts, he knows not wherewith to compare him. 

But if I am tolerant towards Walter Scott, and forgive him the 
emptiness, errors, slanders and stupid things in his book — nay, if I 
even pardon him the weariness and ennui which its reading caused 
me — I cannot for all that forgive him its tendency. This is nothing 
less than the exculpation of the English Ministry as regards the 
crime of St. Helena. "In this case of equity between the English 
Ministry and public opinion," as the Berlin reviewer expresses it, 
"Walter Scott makes himself judge of its merits," he couples legal 
quibblings with his poetic talent, in order to distort- both facts and 
history, and his clients, who are at the same time his patrons, may 
well afford, beside the regular fees, to privately press an extra douceur 
into his hand. 

The English have merely murdered the Emperor — but Walter 
Scott sold him. It was a real Scotch trick, a regular specimen of 
Scottish national manners, and we see that Scotch avarice is still the 
same old dirty spirit as ever, and has not changed much since the 
days of Naseby, when the Scotch sold their own king, who had 
confided himself to their protection, for the sum of four hundred 
thousand pounds sterling. That king was the same Charlep 



— 428 — 

Stuart, whom the bards of Caledonia now sing so gloriously — the 
Englishman murders, but the Scotchman sells and sings. 

The English Ministry, to aid in the work, threw open the archives 
of the Foreign Office to their advocate, and he has, in the ninth 
volume of his work, scrupulously availed himself of every official 
document which could throw an advantageous light upon his own 
side, and a corresponding darkness upon that of his enemies. On 
this account, the ninth volume in question, still possesses a peculiar 
interest, despite all its aesthetic worthlessness, in which it is in no 
respect behind its predecessors. We expect in it important public 
papers, and since we find none, it is a proof that there were none in 
existence which spoke in favor of the English ministers, — and this 
negative content of the book is an important result. 

All the booty thus obtained from the English archives was limited 
to a few credible documents from the noble Sir Hudson. Lowe and 
his myrmidons, and a few verbal expressions of General Gourgaud, 
who, if he really uttered them, deserves to be regarded as a shame- 
less traitor to his imperial master and benefactor. I will not inquire 
into the authenticity of these expressions ; it even seems to be true 
that Baron Turner, one of the three mute supernumeraries of the 
great tragedy, has borne witness to them ; but I do not see to what 
favorable result they lead, save that Sir Hudson Lowe was not the 
only blackguard in St. Helena. With such assistance, and with 
pitiable suggestions of his own, Walter Scott treats the history of 
the imprisonment of Napoleon, and labors to convince us that the 
ex-Emperor — so the ex-poet terms him — could not have acted more 
.wisely than to yield himself to the English, although he must have 
foreseen his banishment to St. Helena, and that he was there treated 
in the most charming manner, since he had plenty to eat and to 
drink ; and that he, finally, fresh and sound, and as a good Christian, 
died of a cancer in his stomach. 

Walter Scott, by thus admitting, to a certain degree, that the 
Emperor foresaw how far the generosity of the English would extend, 
viz., to St. Helena, frees him at least from the common reproach : 
the tragic sublimity of his ill fortune so greatly inspired him, that he 
regarded civilized Englishmen as Persian barbarians, and looked upon 
the beef-steak kitchen of St. James' as the fire-side of a great mon- 
arch — and so committed a heroic blunder. Sir Walter Scott also 
makes of the Emperor the greatest poet who ever lived, since he 
very seriously insinuates that all the memorable writings which set 
forth his sufferings in St. Helena, were collectively dictated by himself. 






- 429 — 

I cannot here refrain from the remark, that this part of W alter 
Scott's book, with the writings themselves of which he speaks, 
especially the memoirs of O'Meara and the narrative of Captain 
Maitland, remind me sometimes so pointedly of the drollest story 
in the world, that the bitterest vexation of my soul suddenly bursts 
out into merry laughter. And the story of which I speak is none 
other than the History of Lemuel Gulliver, a book over which I, as a 
boy, once had rare times, and in which much that is exquisitely 
delightful may be read : how the little Lilliputians could not conceive 
what was to be done with their great prisoner ; how they climbed 
upon him by thousands, and bound him down with innumerable fine 
hairs ; how they, with preparations on a grand scale, built for him a 
great house, all to himself; how they bewailed the vast amount of 
victuals with which they must daily provide him ; how they con- 
tinually blackened his character in the State Council, always grieving 
that he was too great a cost to the country ; how they would gladly 
have destroyed him, but feared lest in death his corpse might bring 
forth a pestilence ; how they finally made up their minds to be most 
gloriously magnanimous and leave him his titles, only putting out his 
eyes, &c. Truly, Lilliput is everywhere where a great man is sub- 
jected to little ones, who torment him incessantly, in the most piti- 
fully petty manner, and who in turn endure from him great suffering 
and dire extremity, — but had Dean Swift written his book in our 
day, the world would have seen, in his brilliantly polished mirror, only 
the history of the imprisonment of the Emperor, and have recognized 
even in the very color of the coats and countenances, those dwarfs 
who tormented him. 

Only the conclusion of the story of St. Helena is somewhat dif- 
ferent, for in it the Emperor dies of a cancer in the stomach, and 
Walter Scott assures us that it was the sole cause of his death. In 
this I will not contradict him. The thing is not impossible. It is 
possible that a man who lies stretched on the rack may suddenly, and 
very naturally, die of an apoplexy. But the wicked world will say 
that the tormentor was the cause of his death. And the wicked 
world has taken it into its head to regard the affair in question in a 
very different light from our good Walter Scott. If this good man, 
who is in other respects so firm in his Bible, and who so readily quotes 
the gospel, sees in that uproar of elements and in that hurricane 
which burst forth at the death of Napoleon, nothing but an event 
which also took place at the death of Cromwell, the world will still 
have its own peculiar thoughts regarding it. It regards the death 






— 430 — 

of Napoleon as a most terrible, tremendous and revolting crime, 
and its wild burst of agonized feeling becomes adoration. In vain 
does Walter Scott play the advocatum diaboli — the canonization 
of the dead Emperor flows from every noble heart ; every noble heart 
of the great European fatherland despises his petty executioners, and 
with them the great bard who has sung himself into being their 
accomplice. The Muses will yet inspire better singers in honor of 
their favorite ; and should men be dumb, then the stones will speak, 
and the martyr-cliffs of St. Helena will rise fearfully from the waves 
of the sea, and tell to thousands of years their terrible story. 



OLD BAILEY. 



The very name of " Old Bailey" sends a shudder through the soul. 
We at once think of a great, black, repulsive building — the palace 
of misery and of crime. The left wing, which forms the real New- 
gate, serves as a prison for criminals. In it we see nothing but a high 
wall of square, weather-blackened stones, in which are two niches, with 
equally black, allegorical figures, one of which, unless I err, repre- 
sents Justice, whose right hand, with the scales, is, as usual, broken 
off, so that nothing remains but a blind female figure with a sword. 
Not far off, and about the centre of the building, is the altar of this 
goddess, that is to say, the window by which the gallows is erected, 
and finally, to the right is the Criminal Court, where the quarter 
sessions are held. Bere is a gate which, like that of Dante's 
should bear the inscription : 



Per me si va ne la citta dolente, 
Per me si va ne l'eterno dolore, 
Per me si va tra la perduta gente." 



" 



Through this gate we come to a small court, where the scum of the 
people assemble to see criminals pass, and here their friends and ene- 
mies also assemble — relations, beggar-children, weak-minded people, 
and especially old women, who discuss the criminal cases of the day 
perhaps, with more insight into their merits than judge and jury pos- 
sess, despite the time so pleasanlty passed in ceremonies, or so drearily 
lost in law. Why, I have seen, outside the court door, an old woman 
who, amid her gossips, defended poor Black William better : mau his 






— 431 — 

very learned counsel did within — and as she wiped away her last tear 
with a ragged apron, it seemed to me that with it vanished the last 
trace of William's guilt. 

In the court-room itself, which is not very large, there is below — 
beyond the so-called "bar," — little room for the public, but in the 
upper portion there are, on both sides, very spacious galleries, with 
raised benches, where the spectators stand, their heads appearing as 
if piled in rows, step above step. 

When I visited Old Bailey, I obtained a place in one of these 
galleries, for which I gave the old porteress a shilling. I arrived just 
at the instant in which the jury were about to determine whether 
Black William was guilty or not guilty of the accusation. 

Here, as in other courts of justice in London, the judges sit in 
blue-black togas, which are trimmed with light blue violet, and wear 
white powdered wigs with which black eyes and whiskers, frequently 
contrast in the drollest manner. They sit around a long green table 
on high chairs at the upper end of the hall, just where a Scripture 
text, warning against unjust judgments, is placed before their eyes. 
On either side are benches for the jurymen, and places where the 
prosecutors and witnesses stand. Directly opposite the judges, is the 
place for the accused, which latter do not sit on "the poor sinners' 
bench" as in the criminal courts of France and Bhenish Germany, 
but must stand upright behind a singular plank, which is carved 
above like a narrow arched gate. In this an optic mirror is placed, 
by means of which the judge is enabled to accurately observe the 
countenance of the accused. Before the latter, certain green leaves 
or herbs are placed to strengthen their nerves — and it may be that 
this is sometimes necessary, when a man is in danger of losing his 
life. On the judges' table I saw similar green leaves, and even a 
rose. I know not why it was, but the sight of that rose affected me 
strangely. A red blooming rose, the flower of love and of spricg, 
upon the terrible judges' table of the Old Bailey ! It was close, 
gloomy and sultry in the hall. Everything seemed so fearfully vexa- 
tious, so insanely serious ! the people present looked as though 
spiders were creeping over their shy and fearful faces. The iron 
scales rattled audibly over the head of poor Black William. 

A jury had also formed itself in the gallery. A fat woman, above 
whose red bloated cheeks two little eyes glittered like glow worms, 
made the remark, that Black William was a very good-looking 
fellow. But her neighbor, a delicate piping soul in a body of bad 
uost-paper, declared that he wore his black hair too long and matted, 



— 432 — 

and that his eyes gleamed like those of Kean in Othello, " while on 
the other hand," she continued, " Thompson is a very different sort 
of a person mem, I assure you, with light hair and very well edecated 
person too, mem — for he plays the flute a little, and paints a little, 
and speaks French a little" — " And steals a little too — hey?" — added 
the fat woman. " Fiddlesticks on stealing !" replied the lea: 
body — " that is'nt half so bad, mem, as forgery, you know ; for 
thief, if he's stolen nothing but a sheep, gets Botany Bay for it 
but if a man counterfeits somebody's hand — why he hangs for it. 
mem — as sure as fate, without pity or mercy." " Without pity or 
mercy !" sighed a half-starved man in a widower looking black coat. 
" Hang! — why, why no man has a right to put another to death, and 
Christians ought to be the last to think of it, for they ought to 
remember that Christ our Lord and Saviour, who gave us our 
religion, was innocent when he was tried and executed!" "Pshaw!" 
cried the lean woman, and smiled with her thin lips — " if they did'nt 
hang such a forger, no rich man would ever be sure of his money, for 
instance, the fat Jew in Lombard street, Saint Swithin's lane, or our 
friend Mr. Scott whose writing was imitated so well. And then Mr. 
Scott has worked so hard to get his money — trouble enough mem, 
I assure you — and folks do say that he got rich by taking other 
peoples' diseases on himself. Yes, mem, they say the very children 
run after him in the street, and cry ' I'll give ye six pence if you'll 
take my toothache !' or ' we'll give ye a shilling, if you'll take Jim- 
my's hump-back!'" "Well! — that's odd!" interrupted the fat 
woman. " And it's odd too, that Black William and Thompson 
used to be such cronies together, and lived and ate and drank 
together, and now, James Thompson accuses his old friend of forgery 1 
But why isn't Thompson's sister here ? — why she used to be a-run- 
ning everywhere after her sweet William." A pretty girl, on whose 
lovely face lay a deep expression of grief, like a dark veil over a 
rose bouquet, here whispered with tears, a long sad story, of which I 
could only understand that her friend, the pretty Mary, had been 
cruelly beaten by her brother, and lay sick to death in her bed. 
!i Pshaw !" — don't call her ' pretty Mary,' grumbled the fat woman, 
discontentedly, " £,he's too slim, too much like a stick, to be called 
pretty, and if her William is hung — " 

Just at this instant the jury appeared, and declared that the 
accused was guilty of forgery. As Black William was led from the 
hall, he cast a long, long glance upon Edward Thompson. 

There is an eastern legend that Satan was once an angel, and 



— 433 — 

lived in heaven with other angels, until he sought to seduce them 
from their allegiance, and therefore, he was thrust down by Divinity, 
into the endless night of hell. But as he sank from heaven, he 
looked ever on high, ever at the angel who accused him ; the deeper 
Le sank, more terrible and yet more terrible became his gaze. And 
it must have been a fearful glance, for the angel whom it met became 
pale — red was never again seen in his cheeks, and since that time he 
has been called the Angel of Death. 

Pale as that Angel of Death, grew Edward Thompson. 






6. 
THE NEW MINISTKY. 

Last summer, I made in Bedlam the acquaintance of a philoso- 
pher, who, with mysterious looks and whispers, communicated to me 
many weighty conclusions as to the origin of evil. Like many of his 
colleagues, he held the opinion that it involved a history. So far as 
I was concerned, I also assented to what he assumed and declared ? 
that the fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the 
blessed Lord had not created money enough. 

" You're right," replied the philosopher : " the blessed Lord was 
uncommongly short of funds, when he created the world. He had to 
borrow money of the devil, and mortgage the world to him as a 
pledge. But as the Lord, according to every law of God and of 
justice is still in debt to him for the world; common politeness of 
course hindered him from preventing his creditor going about in the 
property, and making all sorts of trouble and mischief.. But the 
Devil for his part, is deeply interested in the preservation of the 
world, lest he lose his pledge, so that he takes good care that things 
do not go altogether to the devil, and the blessed Lord who is not 
stupid by any means, and who knows very well that he has his secret 
guarantee in the Devil's selfishness, often goes so far as to give over 
the whole government of the world to old Nick — that is to say, tells 
him to form a ministry. Then, as a matter of course, Samiel takes 
command of the armies of hell, Beelzebub becomes Chancellor, 
Vitzliputzli is Secretary of State, the old grandmother gets the 
colonies, and so forth. These allies then carry oq business according 
L their own evil will, but as their own interests compel them to take 

37 



— ±34: — 

good care of the world, they make up for this necessity, by alway9 
employing the vilest means to bring about their good aims. Lately, 
they carried this to such an extent that God in Heaven could no 
longer endure their rascality, and commissioned an angel to form a 
new ministry. He, of course gathered about him all the good spirits. 
A pleasant joyful heat again ran through the world, there was light, 
and the evil spirits vanished. But they did not quietly fold their 
claws and kick their hoofs in idleness — no, they went to work in 
secret against all that was good, they poisoned the new springs of 
health, they spitefully snapped every rose-bud of the fresh spring, 
they disturbed the tree of life with their amendments, a chaotic 
destruction threatened everything, and the blessed Lord will have 
after all to hand things ove>r to the Devil, so that he, even by employ- 
ing bad means, may at least keep things together. Just see, all that 
is the evil result of a debt." 

This theory of my Bedlamite friend possibly explains the present 
change in the English ministry. The friends of Canning are now 
subdued — those friends, whom I call the good spirits of England, be- 
cause their opponents are devils, and, with the dumb devil, Welling- 
ton, at their head, now raise their cry of victory. Let no one scold 
poor George — he has been compelled to yield to circumstances. No 
one can deny that after Canning's death the Whigs were no longer 
in condition to maintain peace in England, since the measures, which 
they were in consequence obliged to adopt, were constantly nullified 
by the Tories. The king, to whom the maintenance of public tran- 
quillity — i.e., the security of his crown — seemed the principal thing, 
was therefore obliged to transfer the government to the Tories. And 
oh! they will now again, as of old, govern all the fruits of the peo- 
ple's industry into their own pockets ; like reigning corn-market Jews, 
they will be bulls themselves, and raise the price of bread-stuffs, 
while poor John BulL becomes lean with hunger, and finally must sell 
himself with body-service to the high" gentlemen. And then they 
will yoke him to the plough, and lash him, and he will not so much 
as dare to low, for on one side the Duke of Wellington will threaten 
with the sword, and on the other the Archbishop of Canterbury will 
bang him on the head with the Bible — and there will be peace in the 
land. 

The source of all the evil is the debt, the "national debt," or, a* 
Cobbet says, "the king's debt." Cobbet remarks on this, and justly, 
that while the name of the king is prefixed to all institutes, as fof 
instance, "the king's army," "the king's navy," "the king's courts," 



— 435 — 

M the king's prisons," &c, the debt, which really sprang from these 
institutions, is never called the king's debt, and that it is the only- 
case in which the nation has been so much honored as to have any- 
thing called after it. 

The greatest evil is the debt. It cannot be denied that it upholds 
the English state, and that so firmly that the worst of devils cannot 
break it down; but it has also resulted in making of all England one 
vast tread-mill, where the people must work day and night to fatten 
their creditors. It has made England old and gray with the cares 
of payment, and banished from her every cheerful and youthful feel- 
ing, and finally — as is the case with all deeply indebted men — has 
bowed the country down into the most abject resignation — though 
nine hundred thousand muskets, and as many sabres and bayonets, 
lie in the Tower of London. 



THE DEBT. 



When I was a boy, there were three things which especially inte- 
rested me in the newspapers. I first of all was accustomed to seek 
under the head, " Great Britain," whether Richard Martin had not 
presented a fresh petition to Parliament for the more humane treat- 
ment of poor horses, dogs and asses. Then under " Frankfort," 
I looked to see whether Dr. Schreiber had addressed the Diet on the 
subject of the Grand-Ducal purchasers of Hessian domains. Then 
I at once attacked " Turkey," and read through the long Constanti- 
nople, merely to find if a. Grand Vizier had not been honored with 
the silken noose. 

This last subject always supplied me with the most copious food 
for reflection. That a despot should strangle his servants without 
ceremony, seemed to me to be natural enough ; for I had once seen, 
in a menagerie, how the king of beasts fell into such a majestic rage, 
that he would, beyond question, have torn to pieces many an innocent 
spectator, had he not been caged in a secure constitution of iron 
bars. But what really astonished me was, that after the strangula- 
tion of the old. Mr. Grand Vizier, there was always a new one willing 
to become Grand Vizier in turn. 

Now that I am older grown, and busy myself more with the Eng- 



— 436 — 

lish than with their friends, the Turks ; a like amazement seizes me, 
when I see how, after the resignation of a prime-minister, another 
at once forces himself into his place, although the new one is always 
a man who has wherewithal to live, and who (with the exception of 
Wellington) is anything but a blockhead. This has been especially 
the case since the French Kevolution ; care and trouble have multi- 
plied themselves in Downing Street, and the burden of business is 
well nigh unbearable. 

Affairs of state, and their manifold relations, were much simpler 
in the olden time, when reflecting poets compared the government to 
a ship, and the minister to a steersman. Now, however, all is more 
complicated and entangled ; the common ship of state has become a 
steamboat, and the minister no longer has a mere helm to control, 
but must, as responsible engineer, take his place below, amid the 
immense machinery, and anxiously examine every little iron rivet, 
every wheel which could cause a stoppage — must look by day and by 
night into the blazing fire, and sweat with heat and vexation, since, 
through the slightest carelessness on his part, the boiler might burst 
and vessel and passengers be lost. Meanwhile, the captain and pas- 
sengers walk calmly on the deck — as calmly flutters the flag from its 
staff; and he who sees the boat gliding so pleasantly along, never 
thinks of the terrible machinery, or of the care and trouble hidden 
in its bowels. 

They sink down to early graves, those poor, responsible engineers 
of the English ship of state ! The early death of the great Pitt is 
touching ; still more so that of the yet greater Fox. Percival 
would have died of the usual ministerial malady, had he not been 
more promptly made away with by a stab from a dirk. It was the 
ministerial malady, too, which brought Castlekeagh to such a state 
of desperation that he cut his throat at -North Cray, in the county 
of Kent. We saw the god-like Canning poisoned by High-Tory 
slanders, and sink like a sick Atlas under his world-burden. One 
after the other, they are interred in Westminster, those poor minis- 
ters, who must think day and night for England's kings, while the 
latter, thoughtless and in good condition, have lived along to the 
greatest age of man. 

But what is the name of the great care, which preys by night and 
by day on the brains of the English ministers, and kills them ? It 
is — the debt, the debt ! 

Debts, like patriotism, religion, honor, &c, belong it is true tc the 
special distinctions of the humanity — for animals do not contract 



— 437 — 

debts — but they are also a special torment to mankind, and as they 
ruin individuals, so do they also bring entire races to destruction, 
and appear to replace the old destiny, in the national tragedies of 
our day. And England cannot escape this destiny, her ministers see 
the dire catastrophe approach, and die in the swoon of despair. 

Were I the royal Prussian head calculator, or a member of the 
corps of geniuses, then would I reckon in the usual manner, the 
entire sum of the English debt in silver groschen, and tell you pre- 
cisely, how many times we could cover with them, the great Frederic 
street or the entire earth. But figures were never my forte, and I 
had rather leave to an Englishman, the desperate business of counting 
his debts, and of calculating from them, the resulting ministerial 
crisis. For this business, no one is better than old Cobbet, and I 
accordingly communicate the following conclusions, from the last 
number of his Register. 

* " The condition of things, is as follows : 

1. — " This government, or rather this aristocracy and church ; but 
if you will have it so, this government, borrowed a large sum of 
money, for which it has purchased many victories, both by land and 
sea — a mass of victories of every sort and size. 

2. — "I must however remark by the way, on what occasions, and 
for what purposes, these victories were bought ; the occasion was 
that of the French revolution, which destroyed all aristocratic 
privileges and clerical tithes ; while the object, was the prevention of 
a parliamentary reform in England, which would probably have had 
as its consequence, a similar destruction of all aristocratic privileges 
and clerical tithes. 

3. — " To prevent the example set by the French, from being fol- 
lowed by the English, it was necessary to attack the French, to 
impede their progress, to render dangerous their newly obtained 
freedom, to drive them to desperate acts, and finally, to make such a 
scare-crow and bug-bear of the revolution, to the people that the very 
name of liberty should suggest nothing but an aggregate of wicked- 
ness, cruelty and blood, while the English people in the excitement 

* I have preferred, for reasons which will be intelligible to those who are desirous of 
closely following Heine's conceptions, to give an accurate version of his translation, 
rather than the original. The point in question is not Cobbet, but Cobbet as Heine 
understood him. To use Cobbet's own words in reference to one of his own versions as 
given in the very Register referred to, I can say with truth that " as to the translation, 
it was originally done at Philadelphia," though I trust it will not be found as Cobbet 
admits of himself, that " the translator has made some addition to the authorities 
referred to." —[Xote by Translator.] 






— 438 -. 

of their terror, should go so far, as to fairly fall in love with the same 
despotic government which once flourished in France, and which 
every Englishman has abhorred from the days of Alfred the Great 
down to those of George the Third. 

4. — "To execute these intentions, the aid of divers foreign nations 
was needed, and these nations were consequently subsidized with 
English gold ; French emigrants were sustained with English money ; 
in short, a war of twenty-two years was carried on, to subdue that 
people which had risen up against aristocratic privileges and clerical 
tithes. 

5. — "Our government therefore, gained 'numberless victories' 
over the French, who, as it seems were always conquered ; but these, 
our numberless victories, were bought, that is to say, they were 
fought by mercenaries, whom we hired for this purpose, and we had 
in our pay at one and the same time, whole swarms of Frenchmen, 
Dutchmen, Swiss, Italians, Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, Hessians, 
Hanoverians, Prussians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Neapolitans, Maltese, 
and God knows how many nations besides. 

6. — " By thus seeking foreign service, and by using our own fleet 
and armies, we bought so many victories over the French, (the poor 
devils being without money to do business in like manner,) that we 
finally subdued their revolution, and restored their aristocracy to a 
certain degree, although all that could be done, was of no avail to 
restore the clerical tithes. 

7. — "After we had successfully finished this great task, and had 
also by means of it, put down every Parliamentary reform in Eng- 
land ; our government raised a roar of victory which strained their 
lungs not a little, and which was sustained as loudly as possible, by 
every creature in this country, who in one way or another, lived by 
public taxes. 

8. — " This excessive intoxication of delight, lasted nearly two years 
in this once so happy nation ; to celebrate our victories, they heaped 
together public feasts, theatrical shows, arches of triumph, mock 
battles, and similar pleasures, which cost more than a quarter of a 
million pounds sterling, and the House of Commons, unanimously 
voted a vast sum, (I believe three million pounds sterling) to erect 
triumphal arches, and other monuments to commemorate the glorious 
events of the war. 

9. — " Since the time of which I speak, we have constantly had the 
fortune to live under the government of the same persons who con- 
ducted our affairs during the aforesaid glorious war. 



— 439 — 

10. — " Since that time we have been at profound peace with all the 
world; we may indeed assume that such is still the case, despite our 
little difficulty with the Turks ; and therefore one might suppose that 
there is no reason in the world, why we should not now be happy ; we 
are at peace, our soil brings forth its fruits abundantly, and as the 
philosophers and lawgivers of our time declare, we are the most en- 
lightened nation on the face of the earth, We really have schools 
everywhere, to instruct the rising generation ; we have not merely a 
rector, or vicar, or curate in every diocese in the kingdom, but we 
also have in each of these dioceses, perhaps six more teachers of 
religion, of which each is of a different kind from his four colleagues, 
so that our country is abundantly supplied with instruction of every 
kind, in order that no human being of all this happy land shall live 
in ignorance — and consequently our astonishment must be all the 
greater that any one who will become Prime Minister of this happy 
land, should regard the office as such a heavy and painful burden. 

11. — " Alas ! we have one misfortune, and it is a real misfortune, 
viz., we have bought several victories — they were splendid and we 
got them at a bargain — they were worth three or four times as much 
as we gave for them, as Lady Teazle says to her husband, when she 
comes home from buying— there was much inquiry and a great 
demand for victories; in short we could have done nothing more 
reasonable than to supply ourselves at such cheap rates with so 
great a quantity of reputation. 

12. — " But, I. confess it with a heavy heart, we have, like many 
other people, borrowed the money with which we bought these vic- 
tories as we wanted them, and now we can no more get rid of the 
debt than a man can of his wife, when he has once had the good luck 
to load himself with the lovely gift. 

13. — "Hence it conies that every minister who undertakes our 
affairs, must also undertake the payment of our victories, not a 
farthing of which has as yet been counted off. 

14. — It is true that he is not obliged to see that the whole sum 
which we borrowed to pay for our victories, is paid down in the lump, 
capital and interest; but he must see — more's the pity! — to the 
regular payment of the interest ; and this interest, reckoned up with 
the pay of the army, and other expenses coming from our victories, 
is so significant that a man must have pretty strong nerves if he will 
undertake the business of paying them. 

15. — " At an earlier date, before we took to buying victories and 
supplying ourselves too freely with glory, we already had a debt of 



._ 440 — 

rather more than two hundred millions, while all the poor rates in 
England and Wales together did not annually amount to more than 
two millions, which was before we had any of that burden which 
under the name of dead weight is now piled upon us, and which is 
entirely the result of our thirst for glory. 

16. — " In addition to this money which was borrowed from credi- 
tors who cheerfully lent it, our government in its thirst for victories, 
also indirectly raised a great loan from the poor ; that is to say, they 
raised the usual taxes to such a height, that the poor were far more 
oppressed than ever, and so that the amount of poor and of poor 
rates increased incredibly. 

17. — " The poor taxes annually increase from two to eight millions ; 
the poor have therefore, as it were, a mortgage or hypotheca on the 
land, and this causes again a debt of six millions, which must be 
added to those other debts caused by our passion for glory and by 
the purchase of our victories. 

18. — " The dead weight consists of annuities, which we pay, under 
the name of pensions, to a multitude of men, women and children, as 
a reward for the services which those men have rendered, or should 
have rendered, in gaining our victories. 

19. — " The capital of the debt which this government has con- 
tracted in getting its victories consists of about the following sums : 

Pounds Sterling. 

Sums added to the National Debt, 800,000,000 

Sums added to the actual debt for poor-rates, ... 150,000.000 

Dead weight, reckoned as capital of a debt, 175,000.000 



£1,125,000,000 

That is to say, eleven hundred and twenty-five millions, at five per 
cent., is the sum total of those annual fifty-six millions ; yes, this is 
about the present total, only that the Poor-rates Debt is not included 
in the accounts which were laid before Parliament, since the country 
pays them at once into the different parishes. If any one, therefore, 
will subtract that six millions from the forty-six millions, it follows 
that the creditors holding the State Debt, and the dead weight peo- 
ple, really swallow up all the rest. 

20. — " The Poor-rates are, however, just as much a debt as the 
debt held by the state's creditors, and apparently sprang from the 
same source. The poor are crushed to the earth by the terrible load 
of taxes ; every other person has borne, of course, some of the bur- 
den, but all, except the poor, contrived to shift it more or less from 
their shoulders, until it finally fell with a fearful weight entirely on 



— 441 — 

the latter,* and they lost their beer-barrels, their copper kettles, their 
pewter plates, their clocks, their beds, and even the tools of their 
trades ; they lost their clothes, and were obliged to dress in rags — 
yes, they lost the very flesh from their bones. It was impossible to 
go further ; and of that which had been taken from them, something 
was restored under the name of increased Poor-rates. These are, in 
consequence, a real debt — a real mortgage on the land. The interest 
of this debt may, it is true, be withheld ; but were this done, the peo- 
ple, who have a right to require it, would rise in a body and demand, 
no matter how, payment of the whole amount. This is consequently 
a real debt, and a debt which must be paid to the uttermost farthing, 
and, as I distinctly declare, preference will be demanded for it before 
all other debts. 

21. — " It is therefore unnecessary to wonder at the hard case of 
those who undertake such duties ! It would be rather a matter 
of astonishment if any one would attempt such a task, were it not 
left to his free will to also undertake, as he pleased, a radical change 
in the whole system. 

22. — " Here there is no possibility of relief, should one undertake 
to lower the annual expenditure of the state creditors' debt, and of 
the dead weight debt, and to expect such a diminution of the debt, 
or such a reduction from the country, or to hinder its causing great 
commotion, or to prevent half a million human beings, in or about 
London, from perishing of hunger, it is necessary that far more 
appropriate and proportional reductions be made in other directions, 
before the reduction of those two debts, or their interest, be attempted. 

23. — " As we have already seen, these victories were purchased 
with the view of preventing a reform of Parliament in England, and 
to maintain aristocratic privileges and clerical tithes, and it would be, 
in consequence, a deed of cruelty which would cry aloud to Heaven, 
should we take their lawful dues from those persons who lent us the 
money, or if we withdrew payment from the people who hired us the 
hands with which we won the victories. It would be a deed of cruelty 
which would bring down the vengeance of God on us, should we com- 
mit such things, while the profitable posts of honor of the aristocracy, 

* This simile forcibly recalls a common newspaper paragraph, to the following effect: 
" The Revenue is the great subject which interests England, and especially when asso- 
ciated with the present National Debt. Not long ago, an Englishman observed a stone 
roll down a staircase. It bumped on every stair till it came to the bottom : there of course 
it rested. "That stone," said he " resembles the National Debt of my country: it has 
bumped on every grade of the community, but its weight is on the lowest." 

[Note by Translator. 






— 442 — 

their pensions, sinecures, royal gifts, military rewards, and finally, the 
tithes of the clergy, remained untouched ! 

24 ; — " Here — here, therefore, lies the difficulty : he who becomes 
minister must be minister of a country which has a great passion for 
victories, which is sufficiently supplied with them, and has obtained 
incomparable military glory ; but which — more's the pity — has not 
yet paid for these splendid things, and which now leaves it to the 
Minister to settle the bill, without his knowing where he is to get the 
money." 

These be things which bear down a Minister to his grave, or at 
least make of him a madman. England owes more than she can pay. 
Let no one boast that she possesses India, and rich colonies. As it 
appears from the last Parliamentary debates, England does not draw 
a single farthing of income from her vast, immeasurable India— nay, 
she must pay thither several millions from her own resources. This 
country only benefits England by the fact that certain Britons, who 
there grow rich, aid the industry and the circulation of money at 
home by their wealth, while a thousand others gain their bread from 
the East India Company. The colonies, therefore, yield no income 
to the state, require supplies, and are of service simply to commerce,* 
and to enrich an aristocracy, whose younger sons and nephews are 
sent thither as governors and subordinate officials. The payment 
of the National Debt falls consequently altogether upon Great Bri- 
tain and Ireland. But here, too, the resources are not so great as 
the debt itself. Let us hear what Gobbet says of this : 

" There are people who, to suggest some sort of relief, speak of the 
resources of the country. These are the scholars of the late Col- 
quhoun, a thief-catcher, who wrote a great book to prove that our 
debt need not trouble us in the least, since it is so small in proportion 
to the resources of the nation ; and, in order that his shrewd reader 
may get an accurate idea of the vastness of these resources, he makes 
an estimate of all that the land contains, down to the very rabbits, 
and really seems to regret that he could not, in addition to them, 
reckon up the rats and mice. He makes his estimate of the value 
of the horses, cows, sheep, sucking-pigs, poultry, game, rabbits, fish 
the value of household stuff, clothes, fuel, sugar, groceries — in short, 
of everything in the country ; and after he has assumed the whole, 
and added to them the value of the farms, trees, houses, mines — the 
yield of the grass, corn, turnips and flax — and brought out of it a 

* Simply to oommerce ! — [Note by Translator. 



— 443 — 

sum of God knows how many thousand millions, he struts and sneers 
in his sly, bragging, Scotch fashion — something like a turkey-cock — ■ 
and laughing with scorn, asks people like me, ' How, with resources 
like these, can you fear a national bankruptcy ?' 

"The man never reflects that all the houses are wanted to live in, 
the farms, to yield fodder, the clothes to cover our nakedness, the 
cows, to give milk to quench thirst, the horned cattle, sheep, swine, 
poultry and rabbits, to eat ; yes — the devil take the contrary obsti- 
nate Scotchman ! — these things are not where they are to be sold so 
that people can pay the National Debt with the proceeds. In fact he 
has actually reckoned up the daily wages of the workingmen among 
the resources of the nation ! This stupid devil of a thief-catcher 
whose brethren in Scotland made a doctor of him because he wrote 
such an excellent book, seems to have altogether forgotten that 
laborers want their daily hire themselves, to buy with it something 
to eat and drink, He might as well 'have set a value upon the blood 
in our veins as if it were stuff to make blood-puddings of!" 

So far Gobbet. While I translate his words into German, he 
bursts, forth, as if in person, in my memory, as he appeared during 
last year at the noisy dinner in the Crown and Anchor tavern. 1 
see him again with his scolding red face, and his radical laugh in 
which the most venomous deathly hatred combined terribly with the 
scornful joy which sees beforehand in all certainty the downfall of 
his enemies. 

Let no one blame me for quoting Cobbet ! Accuse him as much 
as you please of unfairness, of a passion for reviling and of an 
altogether too vulgar personality, but no one can deny that he 
possesses much eloquence of spirit, and that he very often, as in the 
above assertions, is in the right. He is a chained dog,* who attacks 
at once in a rage every one whom he does not know, who often bites 
the best friends of the family in the legs, who always barks, and who 
on that account is not minded even when he barks at a real thief. 
Therefore the aristocratic thieves who plunder England do not 
regard it as necessary to cast the snarling Cobbet a crust and so 
stop his mouth. This aggravates him most bitterly and he shows 
his hungry teeth. 

* This comparison of Cobbet to a bull-dog, " the dog of England" must strike the 
reader as particularly felicitous. _ Cobbet indeed appears to have entertained a remark- 
able affection for the animal in question. In speaking of abolishing the baiting of bulls 
■with dogs, he bursts forth against the abolition of " that ancient, hardy and anti-puri- 
tanical sport, and of extirpating a race of animals which are peculiar to this island, 
peculiarly characteristic of its people." ~^ide Cobbet's Register. May 22 to May 29, 1S02 

[Note by Translator. 



— 444 — 

Old Cobbet ! dog of England ! I do not love you, for every 
vulgar nature is hateful to me, but I pity you from my deepest soul, 
when I see that you cannot break loose from your chain, nor reach 
those thieves, who, laughing slip away their plunder before your eyes, 
and mock your fruitless leaps and unavailing howls. 



THE OPPOSITION PAETY. 

A ^kiend of mine has very aptly compared the opposition in Par- 
liament to an opposition coach. Every one knows that this is a 
public stage-coach, which some speculating company start at their 
own expense, and run at such low rates, that the travellers give it 
the preference over the already established line. The latter must 
also put down their prices to keep passengers, but are soon outbid, 
or rather underbid by the new opposition coach, ruin themselves by 
the competition, and are obliged eventually to give up the business. 
If the opposition coach has at last and after this fashion gained the 
day, and finds itself the only one on a certain route, it at once puts 
up the prices, often higher than those of the old coach, and the poor 
passengers, far from gaining often lose by the change, and must curse 
and pay until a new opposition coach renews the old game, and then 
new hopes and new deceptions follow in turn. 

How full of blood and pride were the Whigs when the Stuait 
party were defeated, and the Protestant dynasty ascended the Eng- 
lish throne ! The Tories then formed the opposition and John Bull, 
the poor state passenger, had good cause to roar with joy when they 
got the upper hand. But his joy was of short duration, he was 
annually obliged to pay a higher and still higher fare, there was dear 
paying and bad riding, more than that, the coachmen were very rude, 
there was nothing but jolting and bumping, every corner-stone 
threatened an upset, and poor John Bull thanked the Lord his 
maker, when at last the reins of the state-coach were held by other 
and better hands. 

Unfortunately the joy did not last long this time either, the new 
opposition coachmen fell dead from the coach-box, others got off 
cautiously when the horses became restive, and the old drivers, the 



— 445 — 

old courtly riders with golden spurs again took their old places, and 
cracked away with the old whips. 

I will not run this figure of speech to the ground, and I therefore 
turn again to the words "Whigs" and "Tories," which I have 
already used to indicate the two opposition parties, and a discussion 
of the names will be all the better, since they have for a long time 
been a source of confusion of ideas. 

As the names of G-hibellines and G-uelfs acquired by mutations and 
new events, during the middle ages, the vaguest and most opposite 
significations, so also at a later date in England did those of Whigs 
and Tories, the origin of which is at present scarcely known. Some 
assert that they were formerly abusive terms which eventually became 
honest party names, which often happens, as for instance when a 
party in Holland baptised themselves "beggars" from les gueux, as 
at a latter date the Jacobins often called themselves sans culottes, 
and as perhaps the serviles and dark-lantern folks of our own time 
will perhaps, at some future day, bear these names as glorious 
epithets of honor — a thing which, it must be admitted they cannot 
now do. The word Whig is said to have signified in Ireland some- 
thing disagreeably sour,* and was there used to ridicule the Presby- 
terians or new sects in general. The word Tory which was used 
about the same time as a party name, signified in Ireland a sort of 
scabby thieves. Both nicknames became general in the time of tne 
Stuarts, and during the disputes between the sects and the dominant 
church. 

The general view is, that the Tories incline altogether to the side 
of the throne, and fight for the crown's privileges ; while, on the other 
hand, the Whigs lean towards the people, and protect their rights. 
These explanations are, however, vague, and are rather bookish than 
practical. The terms may be regarded rather as coterie names. They 
indicate men who cling together on certain opposing questions, whose 
predecessors and friends held together on the same grounds, and who 
through political storms, bore in common their joys, sorrows, and the 
enmity of the opposite party. Principles never enter into considera- 
tion ; they do not unite on certain ideas, but on certain rules of state 
government — on the abolition or- maintenance of certain abuses — on 
certain bills, certain hereditary questions, — no matter from what point 
of view, generally from mere custom. The English do not however 

* Sauertopfisch. This word as used by Heine signifies sour or crabbed, but its com- 
ponent parte of sauer or sour, and Top/, a pot or pipkin, seem to refer with peculiar 
aptness to the culinary meaning of " Whig" — i. e., a sort of sour whey. 

38 



— 416 — 

let themselves be led astray by these party names. When they speak 
of Whigs, they do not form in so doiDg a definite idea, as we do in 
speaking of Liberals, when we at once bring before us men who are, 
from their very souls, sincere as to certain privileges of freedom — 
but they think of an external union of people, of whom each one, 
judged by his private manner of thought, would form a party by him- 
self, and who, as I have already said, fight against the Tories through 
the impulse of extraneous causes, accidental interests, and the asso- 
ciations of enmity or friendship. In such a state as this, we cannot 
imagine a strife against aristocracy in our sense of the term, since 
the Tories are really not more aristocratic than the Whigs, and often 
even not more so than the bourgeoisie, or middle-class, themselves, 
who regard the aristocracy as something unchangeable as the sun, 
moon and stars — who see in the privileges of the nobility and clergy 
that which is not merely profitable to the state, but is actually a 
necessity of nature, and who would perhaps fight for these privileges 
with far more zeal than the aristocrats themselves, since they believe 
more implicitly in them, while the latter have very generally lost their 
faith. In this point of view, we must admit that the spirit of the 
English is still over-clouded by the night of the Middle Ages — the 
holy idea of a citizen-like equality has not, as yet, enlightened them ; 
and many a citizen-statesman in England, who has Tory tendencies, 
ought not, by any means, to be regarded as servile, or be counted 
among those servile hounds who could be free, and still creep back 
into their old kennel and bay the sun of freedom. 

The names of Whig and Tory are consequently utterly useless, so 
far as comprehending the British opposition is concerned, and Fran- 
cis Burdett, at the beginning of the session of last year, very cor- 
rectly declared that these names have now lost all their significance. 
On this remark, Thomas Lethbridge, a man whom the Lord has not 
endowed with too much wit, made a very good joke — perhaps the 
only one of his life — which was as follows : " He has un-toried the 
Tories and un-wigged the Whigs." 

Far more significant are the names, "reformers," or "radical 
reformers," or, in short, "radicals." They are generally regarded as 
one and the same, and they aim at the same defects in the State and 
suggest the same remedies, differing only in the moderation or inten- 
sity of their views. The defect alluded to is the well-known evil 
manner of popular representation, by which the so-called rotten- 
boroughs — obsolete, uninhabited places — or, to speak more correctly, 
the oligarchs to whom they belong, have the right to send representa- 



— 447 — 

tives for the people to Parliament, while great and populous cities, 
among them many manufacturing towns, have not a single repre- 
sentative. The wholesome cure of this defect is naturally in the so- 
called Parliamentary Reform. This, of course, is not regarded as an 
ultimate aim, but as a means. It is hoped that by it the people will 
attain a better representation of its interests, and the abolition of aris- 
tocratic abuses, and help in their affliction. As may be supposed, the 
Reform — this just and moderate demand — has its champions among 
moderate men, who are anything but Jacobins ; and when they are 
called reformers, it has a meaning differing, as widely as earth from 
heaven, from that of radicals, which is pronounced in an altogether 
different tone — as for instance, when Hunt or Oobbet is mentioned, 
or any of the impulsive, raging, revolutionary men, who cry for Par- 
liamentary reform tha,t they may bring about the overthrow of all 
forms, the victory of avarice, and complete mob-rule. The shades in 
the coryphaei of these parties are consequently innumerable. But, 
as before said, the English know their men very well ; names do not 
deceive the public, and the latter decides, with great accuracy, where 
the battle is in earnest and where it is mere show. Often, for years 
together, the strife in Parliament is little more than an idle game, 
a tournament, where the champions contend for a color chosen for a 
freak ; but when there is a real strife, we see them all hasten, each 
man to the flag of his natural party. This we saw in the days of 
Canning. The most passionate opponents united when it came to a 
war of positive interests : Tories, Whigs and Radicals formed a 
phalanx around the bold citizen-minister, who sought to diminish the 
pride of the oligarchy. But I still believe that many a high-born 
Whig, who sat proudly behind Canning, would have wheeled right 
about face to the old fox-hunting order, had the question of abolish- 
ing all the privileges of the nobility been suddenly agitated. T believe 
(Grod forgive me the sin !) that Francis Burdett himself, who during 
his youth was one of the hottest radicals, and is not as yet classed 
among the moderate reformers, would, in such a case, have very 
quickly have seated himself by Sir Thomas Lethbridge. The ple- 
beian radicals are perfectly aware of this, and they hate, therefore, 
the so-called Whigs, who advocate Parliamentary reform — yes, 
almost more than the utterly hostile high Tories. 

At present the English opposition consists more of actual reform- 
ers than of Whigs. The leader of the opposition in the Lower 
House belongs unquestionably to the latter. I allude to Brougham. 

We daily read, in the papers, the reports of the speeches of this 



— 448 — 

bold hero of Parliament. The personal peculiarities which are mani- 
fested in the delivery of these speeches are not so well known, and 
yet we must know them to duly appreciate the latter. The sketch 
which an intelligent Englishman has made of Brougham's appear- 
ance in Parliament, may be appropriately given here : 

" On the first bench, at the left side of the Speaker, sits a figure, 
which appears to have cowered so long by the study-lamp, that not 
only the bloom of life, but even life's strength, seem to have begun 
to exhaust themselves ; and yet it is this apparently helpless form 
which attracts every eye in the house, and which, as it rises in a 
mechanical, automatic manner, excites all the reporters behind us 
into rapid movement, while every corner of the gallery is filled as 
though it were a massy stone vault, and the mob of men without 
presses in through both the side-doors. In the House below, an 
equal interest seems to manifest itself, for, as that form slowly unfolds 
itself in a vertical curve, or rather into a vertical zig-zag of stiff 
lines joined together, the two zealots on either side, who just before 
sought in crying out to check each other, have suddenly sunk back 
into their places, as though they had espied an air-gun hidden under 
the Speaker's robe. 

" After this bustle of preparation and during the breathless still- 
ness which follows, Henry Brougham has slowly and with thought- 
ful step, approached the table -and there stands bent together — his 
shoulders elevated, his head inclined forward, his upper lip and 
nostrils quivering, as though he feared to utter a word. His external 
appearance, his manner, almost resembles that of one of those 
preachers who hold forth in the open air — not a modern man of the 
kind who attracts the indolent crowd on Sunday— but one of those 
preachers of the olden time, who sought to uphold purity of faith 
and to spread it forth in the wilderness, when it was banished from 
the city and even from the church. The tones of his voice are full 
and melodious, but they rise slowly, thoughtfully, and as we are 
tempted to believe, even with difficulty, so that we know not whether 
the intellectual strength of the man is incapable of mastering the 
subject, or whether his physical strength is inadequate to express it. 
His first sentence, or rather the first members of his sentence — for 
we soon find that with him every sentence goes further than the 
entire speeches of many other people — come forth very coldly and 
without confidence, and are especially so far from the real question 
under discussion, that no one can comprehend how he will bring 
them to bear upon it. It is true that every one of these sentences 



— 449 — 

is deep, clear and satisfactory in itself, evidently drawn with artistic 
selection from the most chosen materials, and let them come from 
what department of science they may, they still contain its purest 
essence. We feel that they will all be bent in a determined direction 
and that too with wondrous force ; but the force is as yet invisible 
as the wind, and like it, we know not whence it cometh or whither it 
goeth. 

" But when a sufficient number of these beginning sentences have 
gone forth in advance ; when every lemma which human knowledge 
can supply to confirm a conclusion has been rendered serviceable ; 
when every exception has, by a single impulse, been successfully 
thrust forward, and when the whoLe army of political and moral 
truths stands in battle array — then it moves forwards to a determi- 
nation, firmly closed as a Macedonian phalanx, and irresistible as 
Highlanders when they charge with fixed bayonets. 

" When a leading point has been won with this apparent weakness 
and uncertainty, behind which however a real strength and firmness 
lies concealed, then the orator rises both physically and mentally, 
and with a bolder and shorter attack he conquers a second position. 
After the second he conquers a third, after the third a fourth, and so 
on until all the principles and the entire philosophy of the question 
in dispute are, as it were conquered, and until every one in the House 
who has ears to hear and a heart to feel, is as irresistibly convinced 
of the truths which he has just heard, as of his own existence, so that 
Brougham if he would pause here, could pass unconditionally for the 
greatest logician of Saint Stephen's Chapel. The intellectual re- 
sources of the man are really marvellous, and he almost recals the 
old northern legend of one who always slew the first masters of 
every branch of learning, and thereby became sole heir to all their 
united spiritual abilities. Let the subject be as it may, sublime or 
commonplace, abstruse or practical, Henry Brougham still under- 
stands it — and understands it fundamentally. Others may rival him, 
yes, one or the other may even suipass him in the knowledge of the 
external beauties of ancient literature, but no one is more deeply 
penetrated than he by the spirit of the glorious and glowing philo- 
sophy, which gleams like a precious gem from the caskets left us by 
antiquity. Brougham does not use the clear, faultless, and at the 
same time somewhat courtly language of Cicero, and his speeches 
are as little in the form of those of Demosthenes, though they have 
something of their color; but- he is not wanting either in the strongly 
logical conclusions of the Roman orator, nor the terrible words of 

38* 



— 450 — 

scorn of the Greek. Add to this that no one understands bettei 
than he, how to use the knowledge of the day in his Parliamentary 
speeches, so that they sometimes, apart from their political tendency 
and signification, merit our admiration merely as lectures on philo- 
sophy, literature and art. 

"It is, however, altogether impossible to analyze the character of 
the man while hearing him speak. When he, as already described, 
has laid the foundation of his speech on a good philosophical ground 
and in the depths of reason; when he again returned to the work, 
applies to it plummet and measure to see if all is in order, and seems 
to try with a giant's hand if all holds together securely; when he has 
firmly bound together the thoughts of all hearers with arguments as 
with ropes which no one can rend asunder — then he springs in power 
on the edifice which he has built, he raises his form and his voice, he 
conjures the passions from their most secret hiding place, and sub- 
dues and overwhelms his gaping Parliamentary cotemporanes and 
the whole murmuring House. That voice which was at first so slow 
and unassuming, is now like the deafening roar and the endless 
billows of the sea ; that form, which before seemed sinking under its 
own weight, now looks as though it had nerves of steel and sinews of 
copper, yes, as though it were immortal and unchangeable as the 
truths which it has just spoken ; that face which before was pale and 
cold as a stone, is now animated and gleaming, as though its inner 
spirit were still mightier than the words spoken ; and from those 
eyes, which at first looked so humbly at us with their blue and 
tranquil rings, as though they would beg our forbearance and forgive- 
ness, there now shoots forth a meteoric fire which lights up every 
heart with admiration. In this manner he concludes the second, the 
passionate or declamatory part of his oration. 

" When he has attained what might be regarded as the summit of 
eloquence, when he looks around as if to behold with a scornful 
laugh the admiration which he has excited, then his form again sinks 
together and his voice sinks to the most singular whisper, which ever 
came from human breast. This strange lowering or rather letting 
fall of expression, gesture and voice which Brougham possesses to a 
perfection, such as was never found in any other orator, produces a 
wonderful effect, and those deep, solemn, almost murmured-out words, 
which are however fully audible, even to the breathing of every single 
syllable, bear with them a magic power, which no one can resist, even 
when he hears them for the first time and has not learned their real 
significance and effect. But let no one believe that the orator or the 



— 451 — 

oration is exhausted. These subdued glances, these softened tones 
signify nothing less than the beginning of a peroration, wherewith 
the orator, as though he feels that he has gone too far, will again 
soothe his opponent. On the contrary, this contraction of the body 
is no sign of weakness, and this lowering of the voice is no prelude 
to fear and exhaustion ; it is the loose, hanging inclination of the 
body, in a wrestler, who looks for an opportunity by which he can 
grasp his adversary the more powerfully, it is the recoil of the tiger, 
who an instant after leaps with more certain claws upon his prey, it 
is the indication that Henry Brougham puts on all his armor, and 
grasps his mightiest weapons. He was clear and convincing in his 
arguments, in conjuring up the passions he was it is true somewhat 
supercilious, yet powerful and triumphant ; now, however, he puts the 
last and longest arrow to his bow — he will be terrible in his invec- 
tives. Woe to the man on whom that eye, which was once so calm 
and blue, now flashes from the mysterious darkness of its contracted 
brows ! Woe to the wight to whom these half-whispered words are 
a portent of the terrible fate which hangs over him ! 

" He, who as a stranger, visits to-day perhaps for the first time the 
Gallery of Parliament, does not know what is coming. He merely 
sees a man, who convinces him with his arguments, who has warmed 
him with his passion, and who now appears to arrive with that 
strange whispering, at a weak and impotent conclusion. stranger! 
wert thou acquanted with the phenomena of this House, and on a 
seat whence thou could'st see all the members of Parliament, thou 
would'st soon mark that they are by no means of thy opinion so far 
as concerns a lame and impotent conclusion. Thou would'st see 
many a man, whom party feeling or presumption has driven without 
proper ballast or needful helm, into this stormy sea, and who now 
glances around as fearfully and anxiously as a sailor on the China 
Seas, when he on one side of the horizon discovers the dark calm, 
which is a sure presage that on the other, ere a minute has passed 
away, the typhoon will blow with its destructive breath— thou 
would'st perceive some shrewd man well nigh groaning, and who 
trembles in body and soul like a small bird, which yielding to the 
fascination of a rattlesnake feels with terror its danger, yet cannot 
help itself, and which yields in a miserably foolish manner to destruc- 
tion ; or thou would'st observe some tall antagonist who clings 
with shaking legs to the benches, lest the approaching storm should 
drive him away; or thou would'st perhaps even see a stately pursy 
representative of some fat county, who digs both fists into the 



— 452 — 

cushions of his bench, fully determined, in case a man of his weight 
should be cast from the House, still to keep his seat and to bear it 
thence, beneath him. And now it comes — the words, which were so 
deeply whispered and murmured, swell out so loudly that they out- 
sound even the rejoicing cry of his own party, and after some un- 
lucky opponent has been flayed to the bones, and his mutilated 
limbs have been stamped on through every figure of speech, then the 
body of the orator is as if broken down and shattered by the power 
of his own soul, he sinks back on his seat, and the assenting applause 
of the assembly bursts forth without restraint." 

I was never so fortunate as to be able to see Brougham at my 
leisure, during the delivery of such a speech in Parliament. I only 
heard him speak in fragments, or on unimportant subjects, and I 
seldom saw his face while so doing. But always, as I soon observed, 
whenever he began to speak, an almost painful silence at once fol- 
lowed. The sketch of him given above, is most certainly not exag- 
gerated. His figure, of ordinary stature, is very meagre and in 
perfect keeping with his head, which is thinly covered with short 
black hair which lies smooth towards the temples. This causes the 
pale, long face to look even thinner, its muscles are ever in strange 
nervous movement, and he who observes them, sees the orator's 
thoughts, before they are spoken. This spoils his witty outbursts ; 
since jests like borrowers should, to succeed, surprise us unawares. 
Though his black dress is altogether gentlemanly, even to the very 
cut of the coat, it still gives him a certain clerical appearance. 
Perhaps this is owing more to his frequent bending of the back, 
and the lurking, ironic suppleness of his whole body. One of my 
friends first called my attention to this "clerical" appearance in 
Brougham's manner and the above sketch fully confirms the acute- 
ness of the remark. The ''lawyerlike" in his general appearance, 
was first suggested to me by the manner in which he continually de- 
monstrates with his pointing finger, while he nods assentingly with 
his head. 

The restless activity of the man is his most wonderful feature. 
These speeches in Parliament are delivered after he has been eight 
hours at his daily tasks, that is to say, practising law in the courts, 
and when he perhaps has sat up half the night, writing an article for 
the Ediuburgh Review, or laboring on his improvements of Popular 
Education and Criminal Law. The first mentioned work, that on 
Criminal Legislation, with which Brougham and Peel are now princi- 
pally busied, is perhaps the most useful, certainly the most neces- 



— 453 — 

sary ; for England's laws are even more cruel than her oligarchs. 
Brougham's celebrity was first founded by the suit against the 
Queen. He fought like a knight for this high dame, and, as any one 
night suppose, George IV. will never forget the service rendered to 
his wife. Therefore, when, in April last, the Opposition conquered, 
Brougham did not enter the ministry ; although, according to old 
custom, such an entry was due to him, as leader of the Opposition 



THE EMANCIPATION. 

Talk politics with the stupidest Englishman, and he will be sure to 
say something sensible. But so soon as the conversation turns on 
religion, the most intelligent Englishman utters nothing but silly 
speeches. Hence arises all that confusion of ideas, that mixture of 
wisdom and nonsense, whenever Catholic Emancipation is discussed 
in Parliament : a question in which politics and religion come into 
collision. It is seldom possible for the English, in their Parlia- 
mentary discussions, to give utterance to a principle ; they discuss 
only the profit or loss of things, and bring forth facts, pro or con. 

With mere facts, there can indeed be much fighting, but no vic- 
tory — they induce nothing but blows on one or the other side; and 
the spectacle of such a strife reminds us of the well-known -pro pair ia 
conflicts of German students, the results of which are, that so .and 
so many lunges are exchanged, and so and so many carte and tierce 
thrusts made, and nothing gained with it all. 

In the year 1827, as a matter of course, the Emancipationists 
again fought the Orangemen in Westminster, and as another matter 
of course, nothing came of it. The best " hitters " of the Emanci- 
pation party were Burdett, Plunkett, Brougham and Canning. 
Their opponents, with the exception of Peel, were the well known, 
or more correctly speaking, the not-at-all-known, fox-hunting squire- 
archy. 

At all times, the most intelligent and gifted statesmen of England 
have fought for the civil liberty of the Catholics ; and this they did, 
inspired as much by the deepest sense of right, as by political shrewd- 
ness. Pitt himself, the discoverer of the firm system, held to the 
Catholic party. In like manner, Burke, the great renegade of free- 



— 454 — 

dom, could not so far suppress the voice of his heart as to act against 
Ireland. Even Canning, while yet a slave to Toryism, could not 
behold, without emotion, the misery of Ireland ; and at a time when 
he was accused of luke-warmness, he showed, in a naively touching 
manner, how dear its cause was to him. In fact, a great man can, to 
attain great aims, often act contrary to his convictions, and go ambigu- 
ously from one party to another ; and, in such cases, we must be com- 
plaisant enough to admit, that he who will establish himself on a 
certain height must yield accordingly to circumstances, like the 
weather-cock on a church spire, which, though it be made of iron, would 
soon be broken and cast down by the storm- wind, if it remained 
obstinately immoveable, and did not understand the noble art of 
turning to every wind. But a great man will never so far contradict 
his own feelings as to see, or it may be, increase, with cold-blooded 
indifference, the misfortunes of his fellow countrymen. As we love 
our mother, so do we love the soil on which we were born, and even 
so do we love the flowers, the perfume, the language and the men 
peculiar to that soil. No religion is so bad and no politics so good, 
that they can extinguish such a love in the bosoms of its devotees, 
and Burke and Canning, though Protestants and Tories, could not, 
for all that, take part against poor green Erin. Those Irishmen who 
spread terrible misery and unutterable wretchedness over their father* 
land, are men — like the late Castlereagh. 

It is a regular matter of course that the great mass of the English 
people should be opposed to the Catholics, and daily besiege Parlia- 
ment for the purpose of withholding privileges from the latter. 
There is a love of oppression in human nature, and when even we, as 
is constantly done, complain of civil inequality, our eyes are always 
directed upwards — we see only those who stand over us, and whose 
privileges abuse us. But we never look downwards when complain- 
ing thus — the idea never comes into our heads to raise to our level 
those who are placed by unjust custom below us ; yes, we are soundly 
vexed when they seek to ascend, and we rap them on the head. The 
Creole demands equality with the European, but oppresses the 
Mulatto, and flares up in a rage when the latter puts himself on an 
equality with him.* Just so does the Mulatto treat the Mestizo, and 
he in turn the Negro. The small citizen of Frankfort worries himself 
over the privileges of the nobility, but he worries himself much more, 
when any one suggests to him the emancipation of his Jews. I have 

* Heine appears to have labored under the common, but erroneous, European idea, that 
a Creole is one of mixed blood.— [Note by Translator. 



— 455 — 

a friend in Poland, who is wild for freedom and equality, but who, to 
this hour, has never freed his peasants from their serfdom. 

No explanation is requisite to show why the Catholics are per- 
secuted, so far as the English clergy is concerned. Persecution of 
those who think differently is everywhere a clerical monopoly, and 
the Angelican Church strongly asserts her rights. Of course tithes 
are the main thing with her; by emancipating the Catholics, she 
would lose a great part of her income, and the sacrifice of self-interest, 
is a talent manifested as little by the priests of love, as by sinful 
laymen. Hence it happened, that that glorious revolution, to which 
England owes most of her present liberty sprang from religious Pro- 
testant zeal : a circumstance, which imposes special duties of grati- 
tude towards the dominant church, and causes her to regard the 
latter, as the main bulwark of her freedom. Many a fearful soul 
may at present really dread Catholicism and its restoration, and 
think of the flaming piles of Smithfield — and a burnt child dreads 
the fire ! There are also timid members of Parliament, who dread a 
new Gunpowder Plot — those fear powder most, who have not dis- 
covered it — and so they often feel as if the green benches on which 
they sit in St. Stephen's Chapel, became, little by little, warmer ; 
and when an orator, as very often happens, mentions the name of 
Guy Fawkes, they cry out " hear ! hear I" as if in terror. As for 
the Eector of Goettingen, who has an appointment in London as 
King of England, he is fully familiar with his policy of moderation 
and forbearance ; he declares himself in favor of neither party, he 
sees both mutually weaken themselves by combat, he smiles in his 
hereditary manner when they peaceably court him, he knows every 
thing, does nothing, and in cases of difficulty, leaves everything to 
his head catch-poll, Wellington. 

I trust that I may be pardoned for treating in a flippant tone, a 
question on whose solution depends the happiness of England, and 
with it perhaps directly, that of all the world. But just the 
weightier the subject, so much the more merrily must we manage 
it ; the bloody butchery of battles, the fearful whetting of the sickle 
of death, would be beyond all-bearing, did there not ring out with it, 
and through it, deafening military music, with its joy-inspiring drums 
and trumpets. This the English know right well, and therefore, 
their Parliament displays a cheerful comedy of the most unrestrained 
wit, and of the wittiest unrestraint. In the most serious debates, 
where the lives of thousands and the welfare of whole countries is at 
stake, it never occurs to any one to make a stiff German district- 



— 456 — 

representative face,* or to declaim French-patlietically, and theii 
minds like their bodies act freely and without restraint. Jest, self- 
quizzing, sarcasms, natural disposition and wisdom, malice and good 
nature, logic and verse, spray forth in the freshest variations of 
color, so that the annals of Parliament, years after, afford us a most 
glorious entertainment. How strongly do these debates contrast 
with the empty, bolstered-up, blotting-paper speeches, of our South 
German Chambers, whose tiresomeness defies the patience of the 
most unwearied newspaper reader; yes, whose very aroma, suffices 
to scare away any living reader, so that we must believe that the 
tiresomeness in question, is a secret and deliberate intention to 
frighten the public from reading their acts, and thereby, to keep 
them secret, despite their publicity. 

If the manner in which the English treat the Catholic question in 
Parliament is but little adapted to produce a result, it is not the less 
true, that the reading of these debates is on that account, all the 
more interesting, because facts are more entertaining than abstrac- 
tions, and they are especially amusing, when a cotemporary event is 
narrated in a story-telling form, which handles it with witty persiflage, 
and thereby illustrates it, it may be, in the best possible manner. 
In the debate on the royal speech, December 3d, 1825, we had in the 
Upper House, one of these parallel histories, such as described, and 
which I here literally translate: (vid. Parliamentary History and 
Review during the session of 1825-1826, page 31.) 

" Lord King remarked, that if England could be called flourishing 
and happy, there were notwithstanding, six millions of Catholics in 
an altogether different condition, on the other side of the Irish Chan- 
nel, and that the bad government there, was a shame to our age and 
to every Briton. The whole world, said he, is now too reasonable to 
excuse governments which oppress their subjects, or rob them of a 
right, on account of differences in religion. Ireland and Turkey could 
be regarded as the only countries in Europe, where whole classes of 
men were oppressed and made to suffer, on account of their creeds. 
The Grand Sultan had endeavored to convert the Greeks, in the 
same manner in which the English Government had attempted the 
conversion of the Catholics, but without result. When the unfortu- 
nate Greeks bewailed their sufferings, and begged in the humblest 
manner to be treated a little better than Mahometan dogs, the 
Sultan summoned his Grand Yizier to give council. This Grand 

* Landstcendegesicht : — a face for Bunkum. 



— 457 - 

Vizier had been formerly a friend and more recently an enemy of the 
Sultana. He had thereby suffered considerably in the favor of his 
lord, and was obliged to endure, in his own Divan, many contradictions 
from his own officers and servants. (Laughter.) He was an enemy 
of the Greeks. The second person in influence in the Divan was the 
Reis Effendi, who was favorably inclined to the just demands of that 
unlucky race. This officer, as was well-known, was Minister of 
Foreign Affairs and his policy merited and received general approba- 
tion. He manifested in this field extraordinary liberality and talent, 
he did much good and would have effected much more, had he not 
been impeded in all his measures by his less enlightened colleagues. 
He was in fact the only man of real genius in the whole Divan, 
(Laughter,) and he was esteemed as an ornament to the statesmen 
of Turkey, since he was also endowed with poetic talent. The 
Kiaya-Bey or Minister of the Interior and the Kapitan Pasha were 
also opposed to the Greeks ; the leader of the whole opposition to 
the demand for rights of this race was the Grand Mufti, or the head 
of the Mahometan Faith. (Laughter.) This officer was an enemy 
to every change. He had regularly opposed every improvement in 
commerce, every improvement in justice, every improvement in 
foreign policy. (Laughter.) He declared and showed himself on 
every occasion to be the great champion of existing abuses. He was 
the most finished intriguer in the whole Divan. (Laughter.) At an 
earlier time he had declared for the Sultana, but he had turned 
against her so soon as he feared that he thereby might lose his seat 
in the Divan, and had even gone over to the party of her enemies. 
The proposition was once made to enlist some Greeks into the corps 
of regular troops or Janissaries, but the Head-Mufti raised against this 
such a terrible hue and cry — something like our No-Popery cry, — 
that those who adopted the measure were obliged to quit the Divan. 
He gained the upper hand and so soon as this was done, he declared 
himself in favor of the very cause against which he previously dis- 
played all his zeal. He took care of the Sultan's conscience and of 
his own ; but it had been remarked that his conscience was never in 
opposition to his interests. (Laughter.) Having studied the Turk- 
ish Constitution with the utmost accuracy, he had found in it that it 
was substantially Mahometan, (Laughter.) and consequently must 
be inimical to all the rights of the Greeks. He had therefore deter- 
mined to adhere firmly to the cause of intolerance, and was soon 
surrounded by Mollahs, Imans and Dervishes, who confirmed him in 
ais noble determinations. To complete this picture of a perfect 

39 



— 458 — 

division in the Divan, it should also be mentioned that its members 
had agreed to unite on certain questions, and to oppose one another 
on others, without breaking up their union. After the evil arising 
from such a Divan had been seen, after it had been seen too how the 
Musselman realm had been torn, and that by their intolerance to the 
Greeks, and by their own want of harmony ; we should pray Heaven 
to preserve the father land from such a division in the Cabinet." 

It requires no remarkable acuteness to guess who the persons are, 
here disguised in Turkish names ; still less is it necessary to set forth 
the moral of 'the tale in dry words. The cannon of iSTavarino have 
spoken it out loud enough ; and when the Sublime Porte shall be 
shattered — and shattered it will be, despite P era's plenipotentiaried 
lackeys, who oppose the ill-will of the people — then John Bull may 
call to mind that, with changed names, the fable applies to him. 
England may already surmise something of the kind, since its best 
journalists have declared against the war of intervention, and signi- 
fied, naively enough, that the other nations of "Europe might, with 
equal right, take up the part of Catholic Ireland, and compel the 
British Govern nient to a better treatment of it. They think that 
they have thereby fully refuted the right of intervention, whereas 
they have simply illustrated it more perfectly and intelligibly. Of 
course, the nations of Europe would have the most sacred right to 
remedy, by force of arms, the sufferings of Ireland ; and this right 
would soon be realized, were not injustice the stronger. It is no 
longer crowned-heads, but the people themselves, who are the heroes 
of modern times, and these heroes have also formed their holy alli- 
ance. They hold together wherever there is a question of the com- 
mon weal, or the popular rights of political and religious liberty ; 
they are connected by the Idea ; they have sworn themselves to it, 
and bleed for it — yes, they themselves have become an idea — and 
therefore it runs like a sharp pain through the hearts of all the peo- 
ple, when the Idea is made to suffer, though it be in the uttermost, 
corner of the earth. 



10. 

WELLINGTON. 



The man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune every- 
where, and wherever the greatest men in the world were unfortunate ; 



— 459 — 

and that excites us, and makes him hateful. We see in him only the 
victory of stupidity over genius — Arthur Wellington triumphant 
where Napoleon Bonaparte is overwhelmed ! Never was a man 
more ironically gifted by Fortune, and it seems as though she would 
exhibit his empty littleness by raising him high on the shield of vic- 
tory. Fortune is a woman, and perhaps, in womanly wise, she cher- 
ishes a secret grudge against the man who overthrew her former 
darling, though the very overthrow came from her own will. Now 
she lets him conquer again on the Catholic Emancipation question — 
yes, in the very fight in which George Canning was destroyed. It 
is possible that he might have been loved had the wretched London- 
derry been his predecessor in the ministry ; but it happens that he 
is the successor of the noble Canning — of the much wept, adored, 
great Canning, — and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed. 
Without such an adversity of prosperity, Wellington would perhaps 
pass for a great man ; people would not hate him, would not measure 
him too accurately, at least not with the heroic measure with which a 
Napoleon and a Canning is measured, and consequently it would 
never have been discovered how small he really is as a man. 

He is a small man, and smaller than small at that. The French 
could say nothing more sarcastic of Polignac, than that he was a 
Wellington without celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip 
from a Wellington the field-marshal's uniform of celebrity ? 

I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington — in the 
English sense of the word. My readers will be astonished when I 
honorably confess that I once praised this hero — and clapped on all 
sail in so doing. It is a good story, and I will tell it here : 

My barber, in London, was a radical, named Mr. White — a pool 
little man in a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white 
again ; he was so lean that even his full face looked like a profile, 
and the sighs in his bosom were visible ere they rose. These sighs 
were caused by the misfortunes of Old England — by the impossi- 
bility of paying the National Debt. 

" Ah !" I generally heard him sigh, " why need the English people 
trouble themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French 
are a-doing at home? But the high nobility, sir, and the High 
Church, were afraid of the principles of liberty of the French Revo- 
lution, and, to keep down these principles, John Bull must give his 
gold and his blood, and make debts into the bargain. We've got all 
we wanted out of the. war — the revolution has been put down, the 
French eagles of liberty have had their wings cut, and the High 



— 460 — 

Church may be cock-sure that none of them eagles will come a-flying 
over the Channel ; and now the high nobility and the High Church 
between 'em ought to pay, any way, for the debts, which were made 
for their own good, and not for any good of the poor people. Ah ! — 
the poor people !" 

Whenever Mr. "White came to the " poor people," he always 
sighed more deeply than ever, and the refrain then was, that bread 
and porter were so dear, that the poor people must starve to feed fat 
lords, stag-hounds and priests, and that there was only one remedy. 
At these words he was wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it 
murderously up and down the strop, he murmured grimly to himself, 
" Lords, priests, hounds !" 

But his radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of Wel- 
lington ; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as 
he lathered me, he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly 
frightened, when he, while barbering away at my neck, burst out in 
wonted wise against Wellington, murmuring all the while : " If I 
only had him this way under my razor, Fd save him the trouble of 
cutting his own throat, as his brother in office and fellow countryman, 
Londonderry did, who killed himself that-a-way at North Cray, in 
Kent — God damn him-!" 

I felt that the man's hand trembled, and fearing lest he might 

imagine in his excitement that I really was the Duke of Wellington, 

I endeavored to allay his violence, and in an underhanded manner, to 

soothe him, I called up his national pride, I represented to him that 

the Duke of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that 

he had always been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he 

was fond of beefsteak, and that he finally — but the Lord only knows 

what fine things I said of Wellington, as I felt that razor tickling 

around my throat ! 

* * * # * 

What vexes me most is the reflection that Wellington will be as 
immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that in like manner 
the name of Pontius Pilate will be as little likely to be forgotten as 
that of Christ. Wellington and Napoleon ! It is a wonderful 
phenomenon that the human mind can at the same time think of both 
these names. There can be no greater contrast than the two, even 
in their external appearance. Wellington, the dumb ghost, with an 
ashy grey soul in a buckram body, a wooden smile in his freezing 
face — and by the side of that think of the figure of Napoleon, every 
inch a god ! 



— 461 — 

That figure never disappears from my memory, I still see him, 
high on his steed with eternal eyes in his marble-like, imperial face, 
glancing calm as destiny on the guards defiling past— he was then 
sending them to Russia, and the old grenadiers glanced up at him, 
so terribly devoted, so ail-consciously serious, so proud in death- 

Te, Caesar, morituri, salutant! 

There often steals over me a secret doubt, whether I ever really 
saw him, if we were ever cotemporaries, and then it seems to me as 
if his portrait torn from the little frame of the present, vanished 
away more proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His 
name even now sounds to us like a word of the early world, and as 
antique and as heroic as those of Alexander and Cassar. It has 
already become a rallying word among races, and when the East and 
the West meet, they fraternise on that single name. 

I once felt in the deepest manner how significantly and magically 
that name can sound. It was in the harbor of London, at the India 
Docks, and on board an East Indiaman just arrived from Bengal. 
It was a giant-like ship fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque 
forms and groups, the singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical 
expressions of countenance, the strange gestures, the wild and 
foreign ring of their language, their shouts of joy and their laughter, 
with the seriousness ever rising and falling on certain soft yellow 
faces, their eyes like black flowers which looked at me as with 
wondrous woe — all of this awoke in me a feeling like that of enchant- 
ment, I was suddenly as if transported into Scherezade's story, and 
I thought that broad leaved-palms, and long-necked camels, and 
gold covered elephants and other fable-like trees and animals must 
forthwith appear. The supercargo who was on the vessel, and who 
understood as little of the language as I myself, could not in his 
real English narrow-mindedness narrate to me enough of what a 
ridiculous race they were, nearly all pure Mahometans collected from 
every land of Asia, from the limits of China to the Arabian sea, there 
being even some jet black, woolly-haired Africans among them. 

To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and 
who was as sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East 
which moved cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a re- 
freshing solace, my heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught 
which I had so often tasted in gloomy Hanoverian or Royal Prussian 
winter nights, and it is very possible that the foreigners saw in me 
how agreeable the sight of them was to me, and how gladly I would 

39* 



— 462 — 

have spoken a kind word to them. It was aiso plain from the very 
depths of their eyes how much I pleased them, and they would also 
have willingly said something' pleasant to me, and it was a vexation 
that neither understood the other's language. At length a means 
occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word my friendly 
feelings, and stretching forth my hands reverentially as if in 
loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mahomed!" Joy suddenly 
flashed over the dark faces of the foreigners, and folding their 
arms as reverentially in turn, as a cheerful greeting they exclaimed 
"Bonaparte!" 



11. 

THE LIBERATION. 



Should the time for leisurely research ever return to me, I will 
prove in the most tiresomely fundamental manner, that it was not 
India, but Egypt which originated that system of castes, which has for 
two thousand years disguised itself in the garb of every country, 
and has deceived every age in its own language, which is now per- 
haps dead, yet which counterfeiting the appearance of life wanders 
about among us, evil-eyed and mischief making, poisoning our bloom- 
ing life with its corpse vapor; yes, which like a vampire of the 
Middle Ages, sucks blood from the nations, and light from their 
hearts. It was not merely crocodiles which knew so well how to 
weep, which sprang from the mud of the Nile, but also priests who 
understand it far better, and that privileged hereditary race of 
warriors, who in their lust of murder and ravenous appetites far 
surpass any crocodiles. 

Two deeply thinking men of the German' nation discovered the 
soundest and best counter-charm to the worst of all Egyptian 
plagues, and by the black art — by gunpowder and the art of printing 
— they broke the force of that clerical and laical hierarchy, which had 
formed itself from an union of the priesthood and warrior caste, that 
is to say, from the so-called Catholic Church, and from the feudal 
nobility, and which enslaved all Europe both in body and in the spirit. 
The printing-press burst asunder the walls of the building of dogmas 
in which the great priest of Rome had imprisoned souls, and Northern 
Europe again breathed freely, freed from the night-mare of that 



- 463 — 

clevgy which had indeed abandoned the form of Egyptian inheri- 
tance of rank, but which remained all the truer to the Egyptian 
priestly spirit, since it presented itself with greater sternness and 
asperity, as a corporation of old bachelors, continued not by natural 
propagation, but by a Mameluke system of recruiting. In like man- 
ner we see how the warlike caste has lost its power since the old 
routine of the business is worth nothing in the modern methods of 
war. For the strongest castles are now thrown down by the trumpet- 
tones of the cannon as the walls of Jericho were thrown down of old, 
the iron harness of the knight is no better protection against the 
leaden rain, than the linen blouse of the peasant ; powder makes 
men equal; a citizen's musket fires as well as a nobleman's — the 

people rise. 

■& * # # * •* ■* 

The earlier efforts of which we read in the history of the Lombard 
and Tuscan republics, of the Spanish communes, and of the free cities 
in Germany and other countries, do not deserve the honor of being 
classed as a movement on the part of the people ; they were not 
efforts to attain liberty, but merely liberties ; not battles for right, 
but for municipal rights ; corporations fought for privileges, and all 
remained fixed in the bonds of gilds and trade's unions. 

Not until the days of the Reformation did the battle assume general 
and spiritual proportions, and then liberty was demanded, not as 
an imported, but as an aboriginal ; not as an inherited, but as an 
inborn right. Principles were brought forward instead of old 
parchments ; and the peasants in Germany, and the Puritans in 
England, fell back on the gospel whose texts then were of as high 
authority as our modern reasoning. Yes, and even higher, since 
they were regarded as the revealed reason of God himself. There it 
stood legibly written, that men are of equal birth, that the pride 
which exalts itself must be damned, that wealth is a sin, and that the 
poor also are summoned to enjoyment in the beautiful garden of 
God, the common Father of all. 

With the Bible in one hand and with the sword in the other, the 
peasants swept over South Germany, and announced to the proud'and 
wealthy burgher-hood of high-towered Nuremberg, that in future no 
house should be left standing, which seemed other than a peasant's 
house. So truly and so deeply had they comprehended the truth. 
Even at the present day in Franconia and in Suabia, we see traces 
of this doctrine of equality, and a shuddering reverence of the holy 
spirit creeps over the wanderer, when he sees in the moonshine the 



— 464 — 

dark ruins of castles from the time of the Peasant's War. It is -well 
. for him, who, in sober, waking mood, sees naught besides ; but if one 
is a " Sunday child" — and every one familiar with history is that — he 
will also see the high hunt, in which the German nobility, the rudest 
and sternest in the world, pursued their victims. He will see 
how unarmed men were slaughtered by thousands ; how they were 
racked, speared and martyred ; and from the waving corn-fields he 
will see the bloody peasant's heads nodding mysteriously, while above 
a terrible lark is heard whistling, piping revenge, like the Piper of 
Helfen stein.* 

The brothers in England and Scotland were more fortunate ; their 
defeat was neither so disgraceful nor so unproductive, and to the 
present day we see there the results of their rule. But they did not 
effect a firm foundation of their principles, the dainty cavaliers now 
rule again as before, and amuse themselves with merry tales of the 
stiff old Roundheads, which a friendly bard has written so prettily 
to entertain their leisure hours. No social overthrow took place in 
Great Britain, the frame-work of civil and political institutions 
remained undisturbed, the tyranny of castes and of trade-guilds has 
remained there, till the present day, and though penetrated by the 
light and warmth of modern civilization, England is still congealed 
in a mediaeval condition, or rather in the condition of a fashionable 
Middle Age. The concessions which have there been made to 
liberal ideas, have been with difficulty wrested from this mediaeval 
immovability, and all modern improvements have there proceeded, 
not from a principle, but from actual necessity, and they all bear the 
curse of that half-way system which inevitably makes new exertion 
and new conflicts to the death, with all their attendant dangers, a 
matter of necessity. The religious reformation in England is conse- 
quently but half perfected, and one finds himself much worse off 
between the four bare prison walls of the Episcopal Anglican Church, 
than in the large, beautifully painted and softly cushioned prison for 
the soul, of Catholicism. Nor has it succeeded much better with the 
political reformation ; popular representation is in England as faulty 
as possible, and if ranks are no longer distinguished by their coats, 
they are at least divided by different courts of justice, patronage, 
rights of court presentation, prerogatives, customary privileges and 
similar fatalities ; and if the rights of person and property of the 
people depend no longer upon aristocratic caprice, but upon laws, 

* Or perhaps the piper of IL-imelin. so qu'iintly sung by BrowninrT 



- 465 — 

still these laws are nothing but another sort of teeth with which the 
aristocratic brood seizes-its prey, and another sort of daggers, where- 
with it treacherously murders the people. For in reality, no tyrant 
upon the Continent squeezes, by his own arbitrary will, so many 
taxes out of his subjects, as the English people are obliged to pay 
by law ; and no tyrant was ever so cruel as England's Criminal 
Law, which daily commits murder for the amount of one shilling, and 
that with the coldest formality. Although many improvements 
have recently been made in this melancholy state of affairs in Eng- 
land ; although limits have been placed to temporal and clerical 
avarice, and though the great falsehood of a popular representation, 
is, to a certain degree, occasionally modified by transferring the 
perverted electoral voice of a rotten borough to a great manufac- 
turing town, and altnough the harshest intolerance is here and.there 
softened by giving certain rights to other sects, still it is all a 
miserable patching up which cannot last long, and the stupidest 
tailor in England can foresee that, sooner or later, the old garment 
of state will be rent asunder into the wretchedest of rags. 

"No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment; for 
that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment and the 
rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles ; 
else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles 
perish : but they put new wine into new bottles and both are 
preserved." 

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love, and hence 
comes the harmony of the views of the elder Preacher in the Mount, 
who spoke against the aristocracy of Jerusalem ; and those later 
preachers of the mountain, who from the summit of the Convention 
in Paris, preached a tri-colored gospel, according to which, not 
merely the form of the State, but all social life should be, not 
patched, but formed anew, and be not only newly-founded, but 
newly-born. 

I speak of the French Eevolution, that epoch of the world, in 
which the doctrines of freedom and of equality rose so triumphantly 
from those universal sources of knowledge which we call reason, and 
which must, as an unceasing revelation which repeats itself in every 
human head, and founds a distinct branch of knowledge, be far pre- 
ferable to that transmitted revelation which makes itself known 
only in a few of the elect, and which can only be believed by th< 
multitude. The privileged aristocracy, the caste-system with theii 



— 466 — 

peculiar rights, were never able to combat this last-mentioned sort 
of revelation, (which is itself of an aristocratic nature,) so safely and 
surely as reason, which is democratic by nature, now does. The 
history of revolution is the military history of this strife, in which we 
have all taken a greater or lesser part ; it is the fight to the death 
with Egyptianism. 

Though the swords of the enemies grow duller day by day, and 
though we have already conquered the best positions, still we cannot 
iaise the song of victory until the work is perfected. We can only 
curing the night, between battles, when there are armistices, go forth 
<vith the lantern on the field of death to bury the dead. Little avails 
che short burial service ! Calumny, the vile insolent spectre, sits 
upon the noblest graves. 

Oh, that the battle were only with those hereditary foes of truth 
who so treacherously poison the good name of their enemies, and 
who even humiliated that first Preacher of the Mount ; since when 
they could no longer deny that he was the greatest of men, they 
made of him the least of gods. He who fights with priests may 
make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled 
bj the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders. Bat as 
these flags which are most rent, or blackened by powder-smoke in the 
battle, are more highly prized than the whitest and soundest recruiting 
banners, and as they are at last laid up as national relics in cathe- 
drals, so at some future day the names of our heroes, the more they 
are torn and blackened will be all the more enthusiastically honored 
in the holy Genofeva Church of Freedom. 

The revolution itself has been slandered, like its heroes, and repre- 
sented as a terror to princes, and as a popular scare-crow in libels 
of every description. All of the so-called " horrors of the Eevolu- 
tion" have been learned by heart by children in the schools, and at 
one time nothing was seen in the public fairs but harshly-colored 
pictures of the Guillotine. It cannot be denied that this machine 
which was invented by Monsieur Gutllotin, a French physician and 
a great world orthopaedist, and with which the stupidest heads are 
easily separated from evil hearts, this most excellent and wholesome 
machine, has indeed been applied rather frequently, but still only in 
incurable diseases, in such cases for example as treachery, falsehood 
and weakness, and the patients were not for a long time tortured, 
racked and broken on the wheel as thousands upon thousands of 
and vilains, citizens and peasants were tortured, racked and broken 
roturiers on the wheel in the good old time. It is of course terrible, 

40 



— 467 — 

that the French, with this machine, once even amputated the he?d 
of State and no one knows whether they ought to be accused, on that 
account, of parricide or of suicide ; but on more moderate and thorough 
reflection, we find that Louis of France was less a sacrifice to passion 
than to circumstances, and that those men who forced -the people 
on to such a sacrifice, and who have themselves in every age, poured 
forth princely blood far more abundantly, should not appear solely as 
accusers. Only two kings, both of them rather kings of the nobility 
than of the people, were sacrificed by the people, and that not in a 
time of peace, or to subserve petty interests, but in the extremest 
needs of war, when they saw themselves betrayed, and when they 
least spared their own blood. But certainly more than a thousand 
princes were treacherously slain, on account of avarice or frivolous 
interests, by the dagger, by the sword, and by the poison of nobility 
and priests. It really seems as though these castes regarded regicide 
as one of their privileges, and therefore bewail the more selfishly the 
death of Louis the XYI. and of Charles I. Oh ! that kings at last 
would perceive, that they, could live more safely as kings of the 
people, and protected by the law, than under the guard of their noble 
body-murderers. 

* * * * * * * 

But not only have the heroes of our revolution and the revolution 
itself, been slandered, but even our entire age has been parodied 
with unheard-of wickedness, and if one hears or reads our vile 
traducers and scorners, then he will learn that the people are the 
canaille — the vile mob — that freedom is insolence, and with heaven- 
bent eyes and pious sighs, our enemies complain and bewail that we 
were frivolous and had, alas ! no religion. Hypocritical, sneaking 
souls, who creep about bent down beneath the burden of their secret 
vices, dare to vilify an age which is, perhaps, holier than any of its 
predecessors or successors, an age that sacrifices itself for the sins 
of the past and for the happiness of the future, a Messiah among 
centuries, which could hardly endure its bloody crown of thorns and 
heavy cross, did it not now and then trill a merry vaudeville, and 
crack a joke at the modern Pharisees and Sadducees. Its colossal 
pains would be intolerable without such jesting and persiflage ! 
Seriousness shows itself more majestically when laughter leads the 
way. And the age in this- shows itself exactly like its children 
among the French, who have written very terrible, frivolous books, 
and yet have been very strong and serious when strength and serious- 
ness were necessary, as for instance Du Clos, and even Louvet de 



— 468 — 

Couvrai, who both, when it came home to them, fought for freedom 
with the boldness of martyrs and with self-sacrifices, yet who wrote 
very trivially and lasciviously, and, alas ! had no religion ! 

As if freedom were not as good a religion as any other ! And 
since it is ours, we may, measuring with the same meter, declare its 
contemners to be themselves frivolous and irreligious. 

Yes, I repeat the words, with which I opened these pages : free- 
dom is a new religion, the religion of our age. If Christ be no 
longer the God of this religion, he is nevertheless one of 'its high- 
priests, and his name shines consolingly into the hearts of the younger 
believers. But the French are the chosen race of the new religion, 
the first gospels and dogmas were penned in their language. Paris is 
the New Jerusalem, and the Ehine is the Jordan, which separates 
the land of liberty from the country of the Philistines. 



CONCLUSION. 
WEITTEN NOYEMBEJR 29, 1830. 

It was in depressed times in Germany — times which were under 
arrest — when I wrote the second volume of the Pictures of Travel, 
and had it printed as I wrote. But before it appeared, something 
relative to it was whispered about; it was said that my book would 
encourage and awaken the cowed-down spirit of freedom, and that 
measures were being taken to suppress it. When such rumors were 
afloat, it was advisable to bring out the book as quickly as possible, 
and to drive it through the press. As it was necessary that it should 
contain a certain number of leaves, to escape the requisitions of the 
eminently estimable censorship, I followed the example of Bene- 
venuto Cellini, who, when he, in founding his Perseus, found him- 
self short of bronze, to supply the deficiency, and to fill up the 
mould, threw into the melted metal all the tin plates which he could 
find. It was, beyond question, easy enough to detect the difference 
between the tin — especially the tin termination of the book — and the 
better bronze; but any one who understood the business, would not 
betray the secrets of the workman. 

But as everything in this world is liable to turn up again, so it 
came to pass that, in this very volume, I found myself again in the same 



— 4H9 — 

scrape, and I have been obliged to again throw some tin into the 
mould — let me hope that this renewed melting of baser metal will 
simply be attributed to the pressure of the times. 

Ah ! the whole book sprang from the pressue of the times, as did 
the similar tendency of earlier writings. The more intimate friends 
of the writer, who are acquainted with his private circumstances, 
know well how little his own vanity forced him to the tribune, and 
how great were the sacrifices which he was obliged to make for 
every independent word which he has spoken since then and — if God 
will ! — which he still means to speak. Now-a-days, a word is a deed 
whose consequences cannot be measured, and no one knows whether 
he may not eventually appear as blood-witness for every word. 

For years I have waited in vain for the words of those bold 
orators, who once in the meetings of the German Burschenschaft, so 
often claimed a hearing, who so often overwhelmed me with their 
rhetorical talent, and spoke a language spoken so oft before ; they 
were then so forward in noise — they are now so backward in 
silence.* How they then reviled the French and the Southern Babel, 
and the un-German frivolous betrayers of the Fatherland, who praised 
French-dom. That praise verified itself in the great week ! 

Ah, the great week of Paris ! The spirit of freedom, which was 
wafted thence over Germany, upset, of course, here and there, some 
night-lamps, so that the red curtains of sundry thrones took fire, 
and golden crowns grew hot under blazing night-caps ; but the old 
catch-polls, in whom the royal police trusted, are already bringing 
out the fire-buckets, and now scent around all the more suspiciously 
and forge all the more firmly their secret chains, and I mark well 
that a far more impenetrable prison vault is being arched over the 
German people. 

Poor imprisoned people! be not cast down in your need — Oh, 
that I could speak catapults ! Oh, that I could shoot falaricas from 
my. heart ! 

The aristocratic icy coat of reserve melts from my heart, a strange 
sorrow steals over me — is it love, and naught save love for the Ger- 
man race ? Or is it sickness ? — my soul quivers and my eyes burn, 
and that is an unfortunate occurrence for a writer, who should com- 
mand his material, and remain nicely objective, as the schools of art 
require, and as Gqsthe himself did — he has grown to be eighty years 
old in so doing, and a minister, and portly at that — poor German 
race ! that is thy greatest man ! 

* Sie waren sonst so vorlaut, und sind jetzt so nachstill. 

40 



— 470 — 

I still have a lew octavo pages to fill, and will do so with a story 
— it has been floating in ray head since yesterday — a story from the 
life of Charles the Fifth. But it is now a long time since I heard 
it, and I no longer remember its details with accuracy. Such things 
are easily forgotten, if one does not receive a regular salary for 
reading them every half year from his lecture books. But what does 
it matter, if the names of places and historical dates are forgotten ; 
so long as their inner significance, or their moral remains in a man's 
memory. This it is which really stirs in my soul and mournfully 
moves me even to tears. I fear lest sickness should overpower me. 

The poor emperor was captive to his enemies, and lay in stern 
imprisonment. I believe that it was in Tyrol. There he sat in soli- 
tary sorrow, abandoned by all his knights and courtiers, and no one 
came to his aid. I know not if he already had in those days that pale 
complexion, like cheese, with which Holbein portrays him. But the 
misanthropically scornful under-lip protruded, beyond question, even 
more markedly then, than in his pictures. He must have despised 
the beings who fawned and wagged around him in the sunshine of 
prosperity, and who left him now in dark and bitter need. Suddenly 
the prison door opened, and there entered a man wrapped in a cloak, 
and when it was cast aside, the emperor recognised in the visitor 
his trusty Kunz von der Rosen, the court-fool. This one brought 
him consolation and counsel — and it was the court-fool. 

0, German Fatherland ! dear German race ! I am thy Kunz von 
der Rosen. The man whose real office was pastime, and who only 
made thee merry in better days, forces his way into thy prison, in time 
of need; here, beneath my mantle, I bring thee thy strong sceptre 
and the beautiful crown — dost thou not remember me, my emperor? 
If I cannot free thee, I will at least console thee, and thou shouldst 
have some one by thee who will talk with thee about thy all too 
pressing oppressions, and will wake up thy courage, and who loves 
thee, and whose best jokes and best blood are ever at thy service. 
For thou, my people, art the true emperor, the true lord of the land 
— thy will is sovereign and far more legitimate than that purple tel 
est notre plaisir, who grounds his claim upon a divine right, without 
any better guarantee than the quackery of shaven and shorn jug- 
glers — thy will, my people, is the only righteous source of all power. 
Yea, even though thou liest down there in fetters, thine own good 
right must prevail at last, the day of freedom draws near, a new time 
begins — my emperor, the night is over, and the red light of morning 
gleams without. 



— 471 — 

" Kunz von der Rosen, my poor fool, thou errest. Thou hast 
mistaken the shining axe of the executioner for the sun, and the 
morning-red is nothing but blood." 

" No, no, my emperor, it is the sun, though it rises in the West — 
since six thousand years, we have always seen it rise in the East — it 
is high time that it for once made a change in its course." 

" Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells from thy 
red cap, and it now has such a strange look, that red cap !" 

" Ah, my emperor, in your distress I have shaken my head in such 
mad earnest, that the fool's bell fell from my cap ; but it is none the 
worse for that !" 

" Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, what is it breaking and cracking 
without there ?" 

" Hush— silence ! it is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and the 
doors of your prison will soon be broken in, and you will be free, my 
emperor !" 

" Am I then really emperor ? Ah, it is only the fool who tells 
me so!" 

" Oh, do not sigh so, my dear, dear lord, it is the air of the dun- 
geon which so dispirits you ; when you have regained your power, 
you will once mere feel the bold imperial blood in your veins, and 
you will be proud as an emperor, and arrogant, and gracious, and 
unjust, and smiling, and ungrateful, as princes are." 

" Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, when I am again free, what wilt 
thou be doing?" 

" I will sew new bells on my cap." 

" And how shall I reward thy fidelity ?" 

"Ah! dear master — do not suffer me to be put to death 1" 

end op the pictures of travel. 






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LIBRARY 



